New Component Demo Writer Room

In Cindy McCreery’s writers’ room class, Moody College of Communication radio-television-film (RTF) students have an opportunity to experience the realities of a television writers' room. Upon registering for the class, they only know they’ll be honing their abilities as writers - the genre is a surprise for the first day of class.

“I started the class in 2012,” McCreery said. “It was only for graduate students then, this is the first year I’ve done it for undergraduates, and each year we do something different.”

This semester, students were delighted, but also somewhat apprehensive, to learn they’d be writing sketch comedy in the style of "Saturday Night Live".

“Because of the 'SNL' archive here at the Harry Ransom Center and my involvement in that and having access to those scripts, it seemed like a really good practical opportunity for every student to make something,” McCreery continued.  

McCreery's class wouldn’t just be writing this semester though. They’d also shoot a full Moody College edition of the late-night staple with the help of students in RTF Assistant Professor of Practice, David Schneider’s production class, creating a full episode called “RTF Live!”

"The thing is, it's always scary to admit that you want to go into comedy because it's so hard to do,” said Tanvi Rudraraju, a junior RTF major who’s minoring in professional sales and business development. “But I've always been told I should do comedy and I've always, in my heart, wanted to do comedy because that's the type of genre I lean into. Plus, I signed up because of Cindy. Why wouldn't you want to take a class with her?”

To kick off the semester, McCreery took the class to the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) for an up-close look at The Lorne Michaels Collection. Jenny Romero, the Center’s Robert De Niro curator of film, showed the class a variety of unseen "SNL" footage, from Kate McKinnon and Bowen Yang’s audition tapes to “Weekend Update” rehearsals where the cast pauses between read-throughs to discuss what jokes are landing and which aren’t.

Soon, students realized their class would function in a similar manner, especially during table reads with one another.

“At first, everyone was testing the waters, but I think now we're more comfortable with each other,” Rudraraju said. “I think everyone’s presence makes all the difference. The more people working on a project like this, the better it gets. My first drafts are horrible, but because of other people's input, you get more comfortable about your choices.”

This was precisely what McCreery hoped students would take from the experience.