NBC has sealed a new two-year deal with “Saturday Night Live” star and head writer Tina Fey, offering the “Weekend Update” anchor a good night and a pleasant tomorrow.
Emmy winner Fey, the first female head writer in “Saturday Night Live’s” history, will remain in that position (which she currently shares with co-head writer Dennis McNicholas) at least through the 2004-05 season.
As part of the pact, Fey will develop her own primetime project for the Peacock. Any production coming out of that deal would be produced by NBC Studios and “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video, much like this season’s comedy pilot starring “SNL’s” Tracy Morgan (which also comes from Carsey-Werner-Mandabach).
Fey has co-anchored the latenight show’s “Weekend Update” with Jimmy Fallon since the 2000-01 season, and is credited with helping to revitalize the segment; she’s expected to continue in that role as well.
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Fey joined “SNL” as a staff writer in 1997, moving up to writing supervisor in 1999. She joined the long-running showcase from Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe, where she was a writer and performer. Other credits include the acclaimed sketch comedy show “Dratch & Fey,” which ran at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
The writer-thesp, who’s repped by Endeavor and 3 Arts, is adapting Rosalind Wiseman’s book “Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence” for the bigscreen. Lorne Michaels and his Paramount Pictures-based SNL Studios have optioned the book as a potential comedy feature for Fey to write and star.
Last season’s “Saturday Night Live” scribes, including Fey, won the Emmy for writing in a variety, music or comedy program. Fey and the show’s writing staff also were nominated in the category for the 2000-01 season.
