SNL cast member performs on campus

After her first audition in New York City, Sasheer Zamata ended up standing in the street crying on her cell phone. 

Today, she’s the first black female cast member NBC’s sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” has had in seven years, and the fifth black female to ever be cast in the show. 

Zamata performed a stand-up routine in the O’Hara Student Center Ballroom Tuesday night, complete with jokes about being named after a “Star Trek” reference, having an “accidentally racist” white stepmom and why she isn’t yet fit to have a child, let alone take care of one.

Pitt’s Campus Women’s Organization sponsored the event, and president Eleanora Kaloyeropoulou said the group was eager to bring Zamata to Pitt as soon as she was hired by “SNL.”

“We think the power of comedy is universal, and we knew [Zamata] would be universally appealing,” said Kaloyeropoulou. “What we try to do as an organization is create space for different opinions and life experiences, and Sasheer is so hilarious and on everyone’s radar right now so she was perfect.”

Zamata started her routine talking about how she had never been to Pittsburgh. 

“In fact, I still haven’t really been to Pittsburgh,” she said. “But the drive from the airport to here was great.”

Zamata’s routine was rife with jokes about living in New York City and dealing with things like men masturbating in their cars in Central Park.

Ben McClymont said his favorite joke of the night was about “the guy with his [genitals] out in the park.”

“I like the way [the joke] progressed,” said McClymont, a sophomore majoring in Japanese and Theatre Arts. “She was like, ‘I was in a park, and in the park was a car, and in the car was a man and in the man’s hand was his d*ck.’”

McClymont also said Zamata’s story about rising from a failed audition was inspiring, citing the anecdote Zamata used to close her routine. 

Zamata said when she was still in college, she drove, then took a bus and a train to New York City to audition for the part of “big band jazz singer” for Tokyo Disney. She then elaborated on how many things she did wrong during the audition: wearing one casual outfit rather than bringing a change of clothes for the separate singing and dancing auditions, having a black and white head shot rather than a colored photo and greeting the casting director with an excited “konnichiwa” because she thought she was “so hilarious and original.”

She was quickly dismissed from said audition with nothing more than a “thank you” from the casting director.

“If I knew then that I would be where I am now though, I would just say ‘thank you’ right back,” Zamata said.

Many of Zamata’s jokes dealt with race, like one about “changing [her] hair and looking like a completely different person.”

“It’s like a superpower,” Zamata said. “I could rob a bank or something. I could go in and put on a wig and come out and people would be like ‘I saw one black girl walk in, but then Rihanna came out. I don’t know if we’ll ever find that one girl, but I’m glad Rihanna showed up so I could get a selfie.”

Sophomore Ashley Larson, said she loved that Zamata made jokes about race at her own expense.

“I love the joke about someone asking her if she wanted chicken and thinking he was racist and then her realizing that she was in a KFC,” Larson said.

Larson said she really enjoyed the event. 

“I always get nervous when I see stand-up because there’s a chance that it’s going to just flop, but it was hilarious and so well executed,” she said.