Saturday Night Live’s 46th season premiered this weekend, and alongside three new cast members and a shiny new opening-title sequence, a couple changes were reflected in the show’s credits. In addition to the previously announced news that Anna Drezen has been promoted to co-head writer, this season’s writing staff is — much like the cast — very much the same as last season, with one new hire: Toronto native, Second City alum, and playwright Celeste Yim. Longtime SNL writer James Anderson, who has been at the show since 2000, was not listed in the credits for the premiere, but according to sources, he has not left the show permanently and will serve as a writer for season 46. The premiere also featured guest-writing credits for Dave Sirus (as a Weekend Update writer) and former SNL head writer Chris Kelly; Kelly will return to write several upcoming episodes this season.
Here’s the list of this season’s current full-time writing staff:
Head Writers
• Michael Che
• Colin Jost
• Kent Sublette
• Anna Drezen
Senior Writer
• Bryan Tucker
Supervising Writers
• Fran Gillepsie
• Sudi Green
• Streeter Seidell
Writers
• Dan Bulla
• Steven Castillo
• Emma Clark
• Alison Gates
• Steve Higgins
• Sam Jay
• Erik Kenward
• Dan Licata
• Lorne Michaels
• Jasmine Pierce
• Gary Richardson
• Will Stephen
• Celeste Yim
Weekend Update Head Writer
• Pete Schultz
Weekend Update Writers
• Megan Callahan-Shah
• Dennis McNicholas
• Josh Patten
• Mark Steinbach