The theater world’s take on Saturday Night Live has locked in its off-Broadway run.
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of SNL’s debut, the play Not Ready For Prime Time is scheduled to begin a limited engagement on October 5th. The show is set to run through November 30th at MCC Theater Space’s Newman Mills Theater in New York City.
Directed by Conor Bagley and written by Erik J. Rodriguez & Charles A. Sothers, Not Ready for Prime Time follows the backstage goings-on of Saturday Night Live‘s early days. The cast of characters includes all of the show’s inaugural cast members—Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner—plus Season 2 addition Bill Murray and, of course, creator Lorne Michaels.
“In 1975, late night TV was a wasteland of bad programming and even worse ratings,” a synopsis of the play reads. “So nobody paid much attention when a new show debuted with a cast of virtual nobodies. But they would…”
The play’s October debut coincides with the true 50th birthday of SNL. While the sketch show celebrated its anniversary in the middle of its 50th season earlier this year, the true 50-year anniversary of its debut is October 11th, 2025. With the date falling on a Saturday, SNL is scheduled to air a new episode that night—and Not Ready For Prime Time also has a performance scheduled.
After premiering the play in Miami in 2022, Not Ready For Prime Time held workshop readings in New York in 2023 as they geared up for a run in SNL’s hometown. Not Ready For Prime Time‘s off-Broadway opening comes on the heels of Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s 2024 biopic about that first SNL broadcast.
Word first spread of a New York run back in July, when Broadway World spotted a casting notice for the show.
Tickets for Not Ready For Prime Time are available now.
