Meet Sudi Green — A Comedian To Watch In 2020
She writes for SNL.
instagram When we think of comedians, names like George Carlin, Kevin Hart or Steve Martin immediately come to mind. But what about female comedians? Comics like Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Ali Wong, or Amy Schumer have been gracing our screens and ears for quite some time. But there’s always new talent to be found, proving once again that women are hilarious.
Whether it’s stand-up, a podcast, or a show on a streaming service, female comedians are taking over, and the world is getting funnier because of it. Many get their start on the small stage, while others work behind the scenes writing the funny things we see on television or in movies. And one woman has already done all of the above.
Who is Sudi Green? As Vulture said, she's one of the many comedians to watch for in the coming year!
1. She’s from Delaware.
Though she grew up in Newark, DE, Green eventually moved to Brooklyn. According to her bio, “Sudi is Iranian which is why she tans so well.”
2. She developed a love of comedy early.
In a piece on Forbes, Green described how she began to love comedy, even from a young age.
“I grew up in a very comedy-positive household. I had a young dad growing up. He was a big comedy fan and we would just watch whatever he would watch. I just remember watching Molly Shannon as the ‘joyologist’ on SNL and I remember it being so clear like a light bulb going off in my brain and thinking ‘what is this? I think this is my favorite thing I've ever seen,’” she said.
In high school, she began performing with an improv group, but noted her school lacked the funds for arts. “We didn't have that well-off of a theater program, but we did have this improv group because we didn't need sets and we didn't need to buy the rights to plays. It was all free,” she added. “I realized I was good at improv.”
3. She went to NYU.
While attending NYU for a degree in dramatic writing, she wished to develop her talents even further but faced disappointment when she failed to make the improv team: “I auditioned for it and I did not get it. I was pretty devastated and the next year, kind of out of spite, I decided not to audition.”
Despite this, she ended up submitting herself to the sketch team, Hammerkatz, where her best friend, Matt Rogers, was already a member. “I remember writing a sketch admission packet and Matt reading it and laughing really, really hard. And I thought ‘oh my God, I just love this feeling.’ I kind of had this image in my brain. I had left Delaware, came to NYU and had these funny friends who thought that I'm funny and I just remember thinking, ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life,'” she recalled.
4. Since then, she’s had quite a career in comedy.
After she graduated college, Green worked as a production assistant on sets, including Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, and was a research assistant.
As she recalled, “I wanted to try to immerse myself in production. I was waitressing and babysitting before that, and working as a PA or working on sets made me feel like I was using my major at least. A lot of it was taking away the mystery from the process. I think that there’s so much fear in the unknown and just being in a writer’s room without the pressure of having to be a writer and seeing what it was like and not thinking ‘oh this is easy,’ but being like, ‘oh I see how this works and I think I could do it.’”
Green regularly performs in New York at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre, and co-hosts her variety show, Theme Party, with Becky Chicoine. She’s also performed at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, and is a member of sketch groups like Pop Roulette, and O.S.F.U.G.. She’s also acted on several shows, including The Other Two, Girls, Above Average Presents, and Red Oaks.
5. But she’s also a writer.
In addition to acting and improv, Green is a writer for Saturday Night Live! She’s also written for Maya and Marty, MTV, the Emmy Awards, the Golden Globes, and is slated to write for the second season of Shrill, starring Aidy Bryant. She’s also written articles for Refinery29, Salon, Nylon, The Advocate, Reductress, New York Magazine, Slate, and Jezebel.
According to Green herself, she has a nice balance going between writing and performing, and having sketches she’s written, performed: “Writing and seeing your work performed by the great people that I get to work with, it’s super-fulfilling, creatively. I guess I get the same thing out of it. When you are performing and get a big laugh or seeing somebody perform what I wrote and it’s getting a big laugh, it's like the same sort of tingle.”
She’s especially thrilled about working with women in comedy, explaining, “I just love women and I have so many incredibly funny women in my life. I just want to write for them, write with them. What I've always wanted to do is just create opportunities for people that I think are great. I'm really happy that we're in a time when it feels like finally, slowly, womanhood isn't becoming the defining factor of a project. I feel like we are still in a space where we think of something as 'female comedy' instead of just comedy. But I think we're getting out of that zone.”
6. She’s been nominated for and won awards.
In June 2019, Green was awarded the Creative Impact in Television Award at the Nantucket Film festival. The award honored five women, all from different generations, from Saturday Night Live, including Jane Curtin, Anne Beatts, Heidi Gardner, and Sarah Schneider.
In addition, she won a Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Comedy/Variety, Sketch Series. She’s also been nominated four times for an Emmy, for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.
Samantha Maffucci is an editor for YourTango who focuses on writing trending news and entertainment pieces. In her free time, you can find her obsessing about cats, wine, and all things Vanderpump Rules.