Saturday Night Live has announced that two new cast members will join for Season 52.
All Season 51 cast members will also return, except for Chloe Fineman, Bowen Yang, and Martin Herlihy. Yang left the show during Season 51, while Fineman announced her departure in July ahead of Season 52. Variety confirmed Herlihy’s departure on Sept. 9.
The new cast members are Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter. According to an NBC press release, Belo-Osagie is from Queens, N.Y. She wrote and directed the short film Tinge, created the event series “Afrobeats Futura,” and created the solo show Saidah Gets Closure. Belo-Osagie is the first Black woman on the cast since Ego Nwodim’s departure after Season 50.
Reiter, who’s from Chippewa, WI, will appear in the upcoming series Minimum Wage, on which she also wrote and directed. She also had a small role in SNL alum Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company, and made the online parody The Hunger Games (but Better).
Belo-Osagie and Reiter both reposted SNL’s Instagram announcement on their Instagram stories. Belo-Osagie wrote, “A DREAM COME TRUE.” Current cast members, including Jane Wickline and Veronika Slowikowska, showed their enthusiasm in the comments section on the original post, with Wickline writing “YUPPP” and Slowikowska writing “MY GIRLS.”
In addition to Belo-Osagie and Reiter, the cast includes all of last year’s newbies: Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska, as well as veterans Kenan Thompson, Michael Che, Colin Jost, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernández, James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline.
SNL’s Season 52 premiere airs Sept. 26 on NBC with host Jalen Brunson and musical guest Katseye.
