One of comedy’s premier writers is leaving a late-night institution to focus on a new project.
Saturday Night Live head writer Anna Drezen is leaving the long-running NBC late-night comedy series.
Drezen revealed that she was exiting the show just over a year after she was named one of the show’s head writers in September 2020.
She said this week that she was leaving the show to focus on the Freeform animated comedy Praise Petey, starring Annie Murphy, John Cho and Christine Baranski, which scored a series order earlier this month.
Drezen, who has also written on Peacock comedy series Girls5Eva, was initially hired as a staff writer on the show’s 42nd season in 2016, was promoted to supervising writer for seasons 44 and 45 and then upped to head writer alongside Michael Che, Colin Jost and Kent Sublette last year.
“Bye SNL!,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am leaving the show to focus on my show at Freeform. Was going to post a joke but I don’t do those anymore. I learned a lot. Got to meet a lot of animals and people. There is nowhere like it.”
SNL just navigated its final episode of the year last weekend with Tom Hanks and former head writer Tina Fey joining cast members Che and Kenan Thompson to front a pared down show featuring a handful of new sketches as well as classic skits from the past.
