Some more changes are coming to Saturday Night Live this season. In addition to adding three new featured players to the cast ahead of this weekend’s premiere episode, which will be hosted by Owen Wilson, SNL has hired a pile of new writers for season 47. According to a source close to the show, ten new writers have joined the writing team this season, including former Fallon writer Mike DiCenzo, stand-up and That Damn Michael Che performer Alex English, and a little internet-comedy sensation you may have read about on Vulture recently called Please Don’t Destroy. The group also includes alums from shows like A Little Late With Lilly Singh, Archer, and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Here’s the full list of newbies:
Mike DiCenzo
Billy Domineau
Alex English
Martin Herlihy
John Higgins
Vannessa Jackson
Tesha Kondrat
Ben Marshall
Jake Nordwind
Ben Silva
In the case of Please Don’t Destroy’s hiring, two comedians in the group have SNL ties: Herlihy is the son of frequent Adam Sandler collaborator Tim Herlihy, and Higgins is the son of Steve Higgins, who serves as a writer-producer at SNL as well as announcer and sidekick at The Tonight Show. In terms of the rest of the season 47 writing staff, it’s unclear which writers from last season have returned, aside from the head-writer lineup, which includes Michael Che, Colin Jost, Kent Sublette, and Anna Drezen. Guess we’ll find out in the closing credits on October 2.