About the Show

A backstage look at SNL’s 1975 beginnings, where nine comedy legends reshaped television forever.

Set in 1975, the year Saturday Night Live first hit the airwaves, Not Ready for Prime Time tells the story of nine rising comedy talents — Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Lorne Michaels, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner — on the brink of transforming television. The play captures the backstage mayhem, the intensity of live performance, and the fiery clashes in the writers’ room that fueled the show’s groundbreaking comedy. Its Off-Broadway premiere arrives in celebration of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary, shining a spotlight on the origins of an entertainment revolution.

Critic Reviews (8)

"The play wants to present SNL's start as game-changing, but there’s little in the way of a backdrop or context against which to contrast its supposedly revolutionary nature. "
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"But Not Ready for Prime Time seems hamstrung by the need of the writers to show their homework... but it makes for a fairly exhausting, unrewarding play."
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"There are only two things wrong with Not Ready for Prime Time, a comic drama about the birth of Saturday Night Live: It isn't very dramatic and isn't very funny."
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somewhat inaccurate but mostly entertaining story of the creation of “Saturday Night Live"
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‘Not Ready for Prime Time’ can’t decide what story it wants to tell, and winds up setting up too many plot threads over too many short scenes that never lead anywhere in particular
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Any fan of the show will at least get something out of it.
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The script’s refusal to pick a lane muddies the waters, but it is an entertaining piece of work.
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A chaotic, frenetic frenzy with love for its subject material.
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