Students began lining up as early as 3 p.m. for the CPC Comedy Show with Seth Meyers, which began at 8 p.m. Approximately 1,500 people viewed the performance in Edison Theatre or the simulcast in Graham Chapel.

The review

Last Friday evening, I asked myself the usual question: How do I put off my homework as long as possible? It was 6 p.m., so I decided to go be insanely early for the Seth Meyers comedy show to get awesome seats. However, I underestimated the type of crowd Seth Meyers could bring in: a huge one. Not only did Edison Theater fill with the people who showed up before 6:30 p.m. (even though doors did not open until 8 p.m.), but Graham Chapel was also filled with latecomers who had the opportunity to view a simulcast.

Seth Meyers, a Northwestern graduate, is currently the head writer of “Saturday Night Live” and anchors its news segment, “Weekend Update.” He began his set by mentioning that he loves performing for college students. As such, the show was really well-tailored to our audience. He started the show off by joking about studying abroad and how everyone hates you when you get back because all you want to do is talk about how fabulous your life was in Europe or Asia or wherever. Then, he turned to texting and discussed how miserable predictive text is. Apparently, T9 recognizes “go” as “in,” so he once accidentally told a girl that he wanted to “in out” with her. She did not receive that text very happily.

Seth loves using his live shows as opportunities to say things you cannot get away with on television, so we got the opportunity to hear rejected “Weekend Update” stories. We cannot reproduce most of them here, but this headline warranted many laughs: “A German man with no arms was recently arrested for stealing a television. The cops said it was an easy arrest, as the man was unarmed.”

He interacted with audience members, mocking students’ late night impulse eBay purchases, including a Nerf gun drum and a banana hanger. He ragged on a preteen girl’s love for vampires, the fact that Tea Party members seem to each wear only a third of a Revolutionary War-era outfit when they go out to protest, and other topical issues.

All in all, Meyers’ set was a great success. Everyone in Edison laughed hysterically for most of the show, which was presented by the Campus Programming Council, the group responsible for happy hour and the petting zoo.

The interview

AH: So, do you do college shows a lot?

SM: Yeah, I do. I find them a really fun audience. It’s a good place to try out new stuff.

AH: Will we see any of this on the show?

SM: I find standup and sketch really different. It’s hard, you know with standup you have as much time as you want, whereas with something like “Weekend Update,” you have to be really quick with it. It’s actually in a weird way a better place for “Update” stuff that doesn’t want to live than in the other direction.

AH: So all I know about sketch comedy writing is from “Studio 60,” is that at all an accurate representation of what your writing room is like?

SM: No, not at all. They make us seem much more smart and erudite. I wish we were that cool; I wish we would quote Shakespeare. But yeah, not that smart.

AH: I’m sure you guys are. So tell me about the writing process. I know you have a team, but is it stressful?

SM: Yeah, there’s a lot of us, but it’s just stressful starting from zero every week, like it’s Monday, and nothing from Saturday carries over. You have a brand new host, and sometimes you have a host who’s done the show a lot of times. But sometimes, you have someone who is doing it for the first time, and over the course of the week, you have to show them the ropes and make them feel comfortable and write funny enough stuff that it all works out. You never really get used to that.

AH: So come Saturday afternoon, do you have a sense of how the show is going to go?

SM: Yeah, I’d say I’d be able to tell people where to put their money, but I’m often wrong. Often shows that I think are gonna be really good sort of fall off, and vice versa.

AH: Cool. Are you all ready for the new season? Are all the players back in place?

SM: The players are coming back next week. The writers have been back for a couple weeks, just sort of messing around and getting used to the offices again, but yeah, we’re getting there. Very excited about it.

AH: Any way you could scoop me for the first host of the season?

SM: I can’t tell you the first host, but Jane Lynch is going to be the third host—not quite a scoop.

AH: Oh, cool. That should be a great show! I’m really excited for this upcoming season. Will you guys be able to use material from the summer, or do things become less topical?

SM: Yeah, we often find that great idea we have in June turns out to be a terrible idea by September and that the best stuff sort of comes up the week of. It should be an interesting midterm season, though—we’re excited about that. Normally, midterm elections aren’t that interesting, but there seems to be a lot behind this one.

AH: Yeah, definitely. So as you’re describing, live TV seems pretty hard to do, but after doing improv for so many years, does it get easier?

SM: Yeah, it’s nice. I have improv friends who are in shows like “30 Rock” and “Parks and Rec,” and for them, it’s weird because they don’t get the instant response of doing it in
front of an audience. I came from doing stuff on stage, so it’s nice to get that instant response. I did improv during college, so it’s what I’m used to.

AH: Right, you started to go into your history during the show, so I have one question: How’d you end up in Amsterdam?

SM: Actually some Northwestern friends started an improv group out there called Boom Chicago, based on the Second City model, so I went out there six months out of college. I was there for two years and came back and started doing a two-person in Chicago, and that’s what “SNL” saw.

AH: And the rest was history. That’s basically all the time we have, but thanks so much for meeting with me!

SM: Yes, of course. It was a pleasure.