Saturday Night Live is making a handful of changes to its writing staff this season, LateNighter has learned.
Chase Rosenberg and Bam Alston have joined the show as writers, while Jake Nordwind has been promoted to writing supervisor, joining Dan Bulla and Will Stephen.
The show’s head-writing team remains unchanged from last season, with Kent Sublette, Streeter Seidell, Alison Gates, and Erik Kenward continuing in those roles.
The changes amount to a far smaller influx than at the start of last season, when SNL added seven new writers to its staff.
Both new writers have previous connections to SNL talent. Rosenberg performed alongside current cast member Ashley Padilla at The Groundlings, while Alston wrote and performed in a 2025 sketch show directed by longtime SNL senior writer Bryan Tucker.
Rosenberg is a member and teacher at The Groundlings, where they became the comedy theater’s first non-binary member of its main company. Their time there overlapped with Padilla, and the two appeared together in the main-stage show Groundlings Above Ground Pool Party.
Before focusing on comedy full time, Rosenberg also worked in television production, including on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where one of their duties was driving the car immediately behind Corden’s Range Rover during “Carpool Karaoke” shoots.
Alston, a Raleigh, North Carolina native, began performing improv at DSI Comedy Theater in Chapel Hill before spending several years with Washington Improv Theater and later Durham’s Mettlesome Theater, where he performed, taught, and wrote sketch comedy.
In July 2025, Alston wrote and performed in Bullish, a Mettlesome sketch show directed by Tucker. More recently, he relocated to New York, where he has continued writing and performing comedy, including an appearance with Lena Dunham Improv at this year’s Del Close Marathon.
The new additions follow the departure of Martin Herlihy, who left SNL after five seasons. Herlihy spent his first four years at the show writing and appearing onscreen as a member of Please Don’t Destroy before remaining on the writing staff last season following the trio’s departure from the show as a regular onscreen act.
Any additional departures from the writing staff have yet to be confirmed.
SNL returns for its Season 52 premiere with host Jalen Brunson and musical guest KATSEYE this Saturday night.
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