Robin Thede is best known for making people laugh. But on the eve of the Season 4 premiere of the Emmy-winning HBO comedy series, “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” she was fighting back tears.
“Did y’all see me bawling on national TV?” Thede asked the audience gathered at the Linwood Dunn Theatre in Hollywood for an FYC event on April 13.
During her press tour promoting the new season, Thede appeared on “The View,” where she had the chance to thank host Whoopi Goldberg for influencing her to pursue comedy. She recounted how, as a young girl, she’d watched Goldberg’s one-woman show “Direct from Broadway” on HBO and was inspired by the characters the comedian played. It was a touching moment for both women— but what Thede didn’t expect was for Goldberg to turn the praise around on her.
“I still can’t put it into words,” Thede said, sitting alongside the show’s Emmy-winning director Bridget Stokes and her co-stars Skye Townsend and Gabrielle Dennis, who broke in with the inside joke “your butt,” to make the creator laugh instead of cry as she recounted Goldberg’s words.
“She said, ‘You’ve created many seasons of an all-Black women writers room. There’s not even all-white women writers rooms,’ like that’s crazy,” Thede said. “I didn’t even think about it like that. I just thought I want us to tell these stories because we don’t get the chance to.”
But, in the days since, Goldberg’s praise began to sink in.
“We make this show in such a bubble. I’m just trying to impress the people in front of me,” Thede explained. “But to have a legend, an EGOT winner, the GOAT saying that felt really cool. [This show is] not about me; it’s about what that’s now providing for the next generation. That’s the whole entire point.”
While Thede regained her composure, Dennis underlined the creator’s impact: “What was so beautiful to watch in that moment, was that it still has not clicked [in Thede’s mind] how important the flag she’s planted in this comedy space… This show is an institution that she’s created for history-making opportunities both in front of and behind the camera.”
In fact, the first three seasons of the “A Black Lady Sketch Show” have garnered 13 Emmy nominations and three wins, with Season 3 netting trophies for outstanding picture editing for variety programming (which the series has won in back-to-back years) and outstanding directing for a variety series (Stokes made history as the first Black woman to win the category).
Just how unique this show’s environment is cannot be overstated. Before it, Dennis had never even met a Black woman editor. “It was like meeting a unicorn,” she quipped, as Thede asked the show’s editors, as well as this season’s co-head writers Chloe Hilliard and Monique Moses to stand and be applauded.
“The multitude of people in all of these creative spaces that are doing things that they were on a level that they wouldn’t be able to do prior to this show happening,” Dennis continued. “So kudos to Robin Thede, kudos to HBO, for making this opportunity that beyond these four seasons, we hope continues to have a legacy that goes far beyond even what ‘SNL’ has been able to do for so many people. So that is the legacy that she’s leaving behind. And she just needs to accept it.”
Robin Thede, Bridget Murphy Stokes, Gabrielle Dennis and Skye Townsend discuss HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.”
Maury Phillips/Getty Images for HBO
While sketch comedy might seem like it’s all fun and games, putting together each season requires immense dedication and skill.
“It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had,” Dennis said, as Thede chimed in, “But also the most rewarding.”
“People underestimate sketch comedy, they throw it in this box of like, ‘Oh, it’s something you throw together in a week or whatever.’” Dennis explained. “But no, it takes us three months to shoot three hours of television, because we’re giving you six episodes, less than 30 minutes each. The amount of character work, the production quality and value that goes into it, it’s like we’re filming maybe 100+ mini films.”
This season, Dennis played somewhere between 30 and 40 characters, a challenge she’s relished. Sketches like “Actors Behind the Lens Speaking Seriously” — Season 4’s interstitials, which are a play on “Inside the Actors Studio” — demonstrate her extensive acting training as Dennis plays a bawdy “actress” named Sloan Nawford, who “plays” Mary Magdalene in the “Bible Ladies” sketches.
“It’s a show that really lets me just do things that I, in my wildest dreams, wouldn’t think of and this is coming from a person who grew up wanting to do sketch,” Dennis said, adding, “I am grateful that this show challenges every department, and every department shows up. It just makes the job that much more much more rewarding. I’ve done over 100 characters in four seasons, it’s allowed me to challenge myself because I don’t want to let anybody else down. We’re all in it together.”
In addition to screening the Season 4 premiere episode, Thede surprised event attendees with a sneak peek at this season’s “Black Table Talk” sketch, with Emmy winner Colman Domingo going up against Thede’s zany, fan-favorite character Dr. Haddassah. The sketch took about two hours to film and most of the jokes only happened once, shot in singular takes.
“We don’t try to recreate magic,” Thede said. “We provide the place for it to happen.”
Stokes offered her perspective on the clip from behind the lens. “The ethos for every sketch is that we really want to honor the words. The scripts are so good,” she explained. “When we get on set, the actors all do the work to make sure that they’ve got it in their bones and in their blood and then that allows us to play, so you’ll hear us call out ‘fun run’ a lot.”
“She yells ‘Fun run’ and all bets are off,” Thede chimed in, as Stokes joked, “Sometimes I regret it.”
Townsend used a sports analogy to illustrate the way the performers’ chemistry plays into the magic, particularly with the addition of three new featured players — DaMya Gurley, Tamara Jade, and Angel Laketa Moore.
“It’s like basketball. We could tell when each other had a three,” she explained, comparing a great bit to a three-point shot. “We all know when somebody might need to dribble for a bit, but they’re gonna get to the three, and just making sure you pass in the right moments. I don’t even watch basketball. Comedy is great when you pass the ball. It’s like a team sport. Like, if somebody’s funny, and they have something lined up that you don’t see coming, it’s even more exciting.”
Watch the video above for the full conversation.
