FUNNY BUSINESS
Robin Thede brings ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ to HBO
ANGELA Bassett performing comedy is rare enough — but now she’ll be making history while she’s getting laughs. Bassett will guest-star on Friday night’s premiere of “A Black Lady Sketch Show” on HBO (11 p.m.). The series, created by star Robin Thede, marks a milestone TV comedy.
“It’s silly that in 2019, we’re still having black women be the ‘first’ to do something, [like] ‘The first allblack female sketch show,’ ” says Thede, 40, who also co-executive produces the series with Issa Rae (“Insecure”).
The half-hour comedy is comprised of short comedic sketches, ranging from female friendship to espionage spoofs to the apocalypse — all written and performed by black actresses.
In addition to Thede, Rae and Ashley Nicole Black (“Full Frontal with Samatha Bee”) — among other regular cast members — each episode includes celebrity guest stars including Patti LaBelle, Gina Torres (“Pearson”), Tia Mowry, David Alan Grier, Aja Naomi King and Lena Waithe.
“It’s really fun to be able to do a new type of sketch comedy from the point of view of black women,” says Thede. “But it’s not like everything is like, ‘This is our sketch about being a black woman!’ It’s us doing regular sketches. We just happen to all be black women doing it.
“[The title] is also part of a joke, because I thought about people saying, ‘I was watching ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show,’ and, ‘Well, which one,
what’s the name?’ It’s kind of that [Abbott & Costello] ‘Who’s on first?’ joke.”
Thede says she didn’t structure the show around certain themes or topics. Instead, she simply chose material she found humorous.
“There’s no agenda, no political thing we’re trying to push,” she says. “It wasn’t like, ‘We need a relationship sketch!’ I think if we’d pigeonholed ourselves to any sort of list of topics, it wouldn’t have been as good.”
It was easy to get A-list guest stars in part because actors known for drama were eager to show off their comedy chops, Thede says.
“At first we thought we’d get half a dozen [guest stars] or something, but we ended up getting dozens to come play with us in these six episodes,” she says. “Their excitement about it was fun and refreshing. They all came to play. Gina Torres is a very serious dramatic actress who was like ‘I can do comedy. No one ever asks me to!’ ”
Thede is a jack-of-all-trades in the TV industry. She’s best known for her short-lived BET talk “The Rundown with Robin Thede” (2017-2018) and she was also the first African-American woman to be the head writer on a late-night talk show (Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore”). She’s also written for “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and acted in shows such as “Key & Peele” and “Hot in Cleveland.”
“I knew I was going to create a sketch show at some point [since] I’ve been on like six or seven of them,” she says. “So I thought it would be really cool to do that with black women, because it’s never been done. It was the right time to throw my hat in the ring.”
Thede and Rae have been friends for years, so it was the natural move to work together after “The Rundown” was cancelled last year, she says.
“She called me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ so we met with HBO,” she says. “She’s incredible. She’s able to give input where it’s needed but she’s also very much like, ‘create your vision.’
“She’s also in four of the six episodes and she’s a massive cheerleader for this project,” says Thede. “She’s a great partner.”