[music]

Regina de Heer: What is your connection to The Wiz?

Respondent 1: I love the original Wiz with Diana Ross, with Stephanie Mills. I had to come.

Respondent 2: I actually watched The Wiz before I watched The Wizard of Oz. When I found out about The Wizard of Oz, I was more shocked that there was a lot of white people in it.

Respondent 3: It was a tradition in my family to watch it just about every year.

Respondent 4: I remember seeing it as a kid, and everybody in my family really loved it.

Respondent 5: This was the one that speaks to me as a female. Just someone who wants to believe in themselves. It's very encouraging of to think.

Respondent 6: I watched it first when I think I was in sixth grade, got terrified by that little subway scene. Ever since I've been obsessed with it. We watch it every year as a family.

Respondent 7: When I was younger, I had an opportunity to go see Stephanie Mills, like Dorothy, a couple of times. I was very blessed and fortunate to see it as a young child. This brings back a lot of nostalgia for me. If you haven't seen this, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. It's for everybody.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. Amber Ruffin is a busy person. She is perhaps best known for her main gig as a writer and cast member on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she's been part of the creative force behind that show for a decade. She's also written two best-selling books, hosted her own Late Night show for three seasons, and co-wrote the book for the Broadway musical Some Like It Hot, which won four Tony Awards last year.

Now she's written the book for a Broadway revival of The Wiz. This remix of The Wizard of Oz was first staged back in 1975 and later became a star-studded movie with Diana Ross, and Michael Jackson, and Quincy Jones. It has just been an iconic part of Black culture for 50 years, getting passed from generation to generation like a family heirloom. Amber Ruffin joins me this week to talk about the revival of The Wiz and about her whole career telling jokes. Amber, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Amber Ruffin: Yay. Thanks for having me. I win.

Kai Wright: We win.

Amber Ruffin: Oh, yay.

Kai Wright: You are back to New York to bring The Wiz back to Broadway. When did you first encounter The Wiz?

Amber Ruffin: The Wiz is like the news to me. It's just a thing that exists in the world. I may be making this up, but I feel like it came on TV many, many Sundays. You know how for a while there and then maybe 1990s, the movie Overboard came on TBS every freaking weekend. I've seen that movie a million times because of it. Then I feel like that's what happened with The Wiz. Some channel played the butt off that thing. Now, we all know every word because we were home Saturday afternoons or whatever.

Kai Wright: I really can't overstate the importance of this show in certainly my family, in so many Black families. We had the VHAs. Of course, I'm talking about the movie version. You go to my grandmother's house, park them in front of the TV, put on The Wiz. You say it's like the news. It was like the wallpaper to me.

Amber Ruffin: It was definitely everywhere. Also, you would put on that DVD of The Wiz when you were homesick. You remember that?

Kai Wright: I do.

Amber Ruffin: You're homesick. They open up the VHS cabinet, and you can choose from anything you want to watch, and you choose The Wiz because you're a sick little baby.

Kai Wright: Did that make you nervous or excited? For me, I would be like, "Oh, I can't touch something like that. That's too big in my life."

Amber Ruffin: No, man, I love it. Let's bust it up. No, I do. I do feel like it can't be messed up. You love it so bad. The Wiz is pizza. The worst version of The Wiz, you still clapping and singing like you have lost your mind. You're still acting like you're in a concert. That's how it is. I felt like, "Oh, man, I better be careful, and I'm freaking sweating over every last word and stuff." Then Sharon came in there with these costumes.

Hannah came in there with these sets, and Jaquil in the choreography, and Alan and Joseph in the arrangements. I was like, "Man, what am I worried about?" Every element of the show is so freaking good that if-- and I've said this before, and I have to stop saying it, but now, oops. That if instead of words, everyone just said, "Boppy, boopy, boop," you still were like, "God, dang, this is my favorite show." It's so good. I feel like everyone writing on it, which is just me, everyone who's working on it adores it. We want to serve it up for the new children, a script they can pick up 30 years from now, or they can get in a time machine and pick it up 30 years ago, and they can still perform it.

Kai Wright: If I go in there and all I hear is boppy, do, boopy, bop, bop, I'm going to turn people and be like, "This is how it was meant to be. I talked to Amber Ruffin." She was like, "This was the vision."

Amber Ruffin: [laughs] Meanwhile, something's seriously wrong with the actors. No one cares. They're like, "Amber said this was going to happen."

[music]

Kai Wright: You grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.

Amber Ruffin: I did.

Kai Wright: The youngest of five. When were you first drawn to comedy?

Amber Ruffin: I was drawn to comedy when I was a very ugly child. [laughs] It really helped. It did. As a means of survival, for sure. Also, I feel like my mother was voted class clown, and I was voted class clown. It's in there. It's in your bones. Yes, for sure.

Kai Wright: Wait, but was the means for survival thing? Are you serious about that?

Amber Ruffin: Yes, man.

Kai Wright: Tell me more. What do you mean?

Amber Ruffin: I was very teased because I was a special-looking little guy. I was teased all the time, but then I was also rolling with it in a funny way so that I was less fun to tease. How about that?

Kai Wright: Huh? You would just tease back, basically?

Amber Ruffin: I don't think I would tease back. I still really wouldn't. I don't like teasing people who aren't my sister. I'll light her ass up right now. You know what I mean? I was just too fun for you to want to drag me down. I'm sorry. I am probably still that to some degree.

Kai Wright: This is a new novel way to deal with bullies, I guess.

Amber Ruffin: Yes, be a party boy.

Kai Wright: Be a party boy. All right. You turned to comedy as a survival technique. When did you say, "Oh, I'm really good at this, and I want this to be a career?"

Amber Ruffin: I realized I was really good at it when I was, I'm going to say five. I'm the youngest of five. My older sisters took me to a movie. We got to the movie, and there was a group of boys there, and they were trading bar. It got real deep in the dozens. Then one of the boys looked just like, oh, man, Johnny Gill.

Kai Wright: Okay. [laughs] There's a lot of names. I thought I was about to hear Johnny Gill was not the first, but I'm here for it. Come on. All right, so Johnny Gill has entered the room.

Amber Ruffin: This Johnny Gill [crosstalk] was trying to talk trash about my sisters, and then it went back and forth, back and forth. Then finally, I grabbed my older sister by the hand. I said, "Let's go, Crystal, because this guy rubs me the wrong way." All his friends were like, "Oh." My sister's like, "Oh, dude, Johnny Gill, look at us." Johnny Gill sings a song called Rub Me the Right Way. It's good. Download it.

[MUSIC - Johnny Gill: Rub Me the Right Way]

Kai Wright: You need to be.

Amber Ruffin: [laughs] Then I was like, "Oh, laughter from adults. Oops, this might be something." It was. Yay.

Kai Wright: It was. Here we are. Amber Ruffin's journey from playing the dozens as a little girl to crafting Broadway shows and becoming one of the leading comedy writers on TV today involved traveling on stage from Nebraska all the way to the Netherlands and back again.

Amber Ruffin: I went from Omaha, Nebraska, doing little improv shows and community theater a little bit, to Chicago, where I interned at a place called iO, Improv Olympic. From there, I got a theater called Boom Chicago, which was in Amsterdam. When I moved to Amsterdam, and I was in Amsterdam for years, when I moved to Amsterdam, I had never been out of the country.

Kai Wright: Oh, wow.

Amber Ruffin: I had to find a passport, get that, and then move to the literal other side of the world. That's where I really learned how to do comedy. Once 300 people whose third language is English are laughing at you, you can get anybody. These people, they're great. Sometimes it would be like there's a giant group and 100 of these people are from Denmark, and they're here because they work for Shell. "Bye." [laughter] You just have to be like, "All right."

Kai Wright: We're going to find a way to make you laugh.

Amber Ruffin: We're going to figure it out. It really helped with theater because to get the point across to someone whose third language is English is the same way you have to get the point across to someone in the back row of the balcony. It's so much of your face and it's so much of your body that you learn how to make punchlines with your body instead of just small--

Kai Wright: What do you mean?

Amber Ruffin: If you are sick, you have to look sick. You have to be moving in a sick way. I know that because they don't know the word for sick, so I have to physically look sick. I also know that way up back in the balcony, they may have missed the word sick, so I have to look sick. You know what I mean? There's all of that foundation laying your body has to do so that your punchlines can sing, "Oh my God, is this the most in the weeds nerdiest stuff?"

Kai Wright: I have asked you and I'm very happy to hear it. This is great. How often do we get to hear this thought about craft? In the course of, "That's really fascinating," in the course of communicating with people where you're speaking cross language. You're like, "Oh, comedy is more than words." It's all of these things.

Amber Ruffin: Extreme was right. More than words. Guys, everyone go download More than Words by Extreme. It's a great song.

Kai Wright: You're teaching us.

Amber Ruffin: I'm just only referencing old songs. That's what this interview is. You better get into it.

Kai Wright: It's great. It gives us an opportunity to play all those old songs. Every time you say one, we get to play one.

Amber Ruffin: Yay.

[MUSIC - Extreme: More than Words]

More than words is all you have to do to make it real

Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me

Because I'd already know

Kai Wright: I'm Kai Wright. This is Notes from America. More of my conversation with comedy writer, Amber Ruffin, just ahead.

[MUSIC - Extreme: More than Words]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking with multihyphenate comedian, Amber Ruffin. Her most recent project is a Broadway revival of the iconic musical, The Wiz, which opens this week. Before I get back to my conversation with Amber, let me invite you to help us with an upcoming show about The Wiz. As I said to Amber earlier, the movie version of this show is almost inseparable from my own childhood. That scene near the end, where the Wicked Witch Evillene is killed and all the Alvin Ailey dancers going to peel off their ugly suits and start dancing around. That was a moment for me every time. Let's put it that way.

[music]

Kai Wright: I want to hear about your own relationship to this show. Whether it's the stage version, or the movie, or whatever, do you have a memory associated with The Wiz? Do you have a favorite number, or version of a song, or scene? Whatever it is, leave me a voicemail and tell me all about it, 844-745-8255. That's 844-745-TALK. You can also record a voice memo and email it to notes@wnyc.org, again, with your memories of The Wiz. Thanks.

Back to Amber Ruffin. Amber is one of several Black women who have created a new space in comedy over the past decade or so, and who are now shaping popular culture in all kinds of ways. She's best known as a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She had her own platform, The Amber Ruffin Show, for three seasons on Peacock, winning a Critics Choice Award and a Primetime Emmy nomination. She was a writer on the first season of A Black Lady Sketch Show on HBO.

I asked Amber about the beginning of her journey with late night comedy. There's a really pivotal moment in your career that is also a pivotal moment in comedy that comes in 2014 when you are auditioning for Saturday Night Live. First off, just that sentence, auditioning for Saturday Night Live, what does that mean? How do you end up auditioning for Saturday Night Live? What does that look like?

Amber Ruffin: At Boom Chicago, there are a lot of super famous alums. Like Seth Meyers is from Boom Chicago, so I knew him. Jason Sudeikis, and a lot of writers. I was, I'm sure, recommended to audition because they were looking for a Black woman. It started out with showcases in LA. I lived in LA at that time. We would do a couple of showcases here and there, and I kept making it to the next one and the next one.

Then we got to the real audition in New York, and it was the fricking funnest. I went up. You have to do it where the host gives the monologue and you come out there and you do your little five minutes, three characters, and then three impressions. We all did our thing. I had gone up directly after Leslie Jones. Leslie Jones was walking out, she's all sweaty and fricking flopping down the hallway. Everyone is scream, crying, laughing. She's no longer in the room. They're just not done laughing yet, so I'm auditioning in the echoes of Leslie Jones' laughter.

Kai Wright: It's not fair.

Amber Ruffin: It was fine. Ultimately, it turned out good. Then they sent most of us home, but then me, Leslie Jones, Lakendra Tookes, and Sasheer Zamata stayed. We were all like, "One of us is going to be on SNL, it's great." I thought, "I've been writing and performing sketches for 10 years. It has to be me." I really felt that. Sit down and write a sketch, I can do it. It's my full-time job. Anyway, so then I'm so wrong. It's the four of us, and everyone but me gets SNL. Sasheer gets the acting job. Lakendra and Leslie become writers. Leslie was a writer first. Then I got to go home. I got nothing.

Kai Wright: This moment, there's so much happening there that I want to unpack. First off, you mentioned they were looking for a Black woman. This was a moment where SNL had not had a Black woman on the show for years since Maya Rudolph left in 2008, I think it was. Kenan Thompson had said this thing the year before. He had been asked, "Why are there no Black women?" He was like, "None of them can do well enough in the audition," or something of that nature.

Amber Ruffin: In this article that some turd fricking wrote, they said that Kenan said that, "No Black women are ready." He did not say that. We had a long talk about how-- You learn pretty fast, that if you're going to open up a dialogue with someone, it's going to go poor for you. Just let him accuse you of being-

Kai Wright: Of whatever.

Amber Ruffin: -and then move on. Then he said what he fully said, and that made a lot more sense. I was like, "Now I can see you saying that." I couldn't see him saying what they accused him of saying. Lord knows, that has happened to me, where some interviewer will be like, "You said you hate babies," which I do, but I didn't say that. No, I'm kidding. I love babies. I hate children.

Kai Wright: Wait, so what did Kenan actually say?

Amber Ruffin: I'll never remember. This was 10 years ago at this point.

Kai Wright: The point is that you felt like it was entirely taken out of context?

Amber Ruffin: 100% taken out context, but I'm really glad they did it. Because they did that, then we can all go audition for us now though.

Kai Wright: The point of all that for me was, it was this moment where there was a lot of conversation about, why aren't we seeing more of these Black women? The people even auditioning there, you, and Leslie Jones, and Tiffany Haddish, I think was involved, all of these massive figures now. What did that moment feel like in terms of all the Black women that were stealing the stage at the moment?

Amber Ruffin: It was the cool. It was fricking the coolest thing in the world. It was adorable. Every showcase we had up to the audition was the most fun and the most supportive place on earth. Still to this day, I could call any one of those people and be like, "Hi, I'm lonely," or, "Hi, I'm uninspired," or, "Hi, do you have an idea for a joke that completes this run?" Any one of those people would text me back in one second. There was a point when I got Late Night where I knew all of the Black women who wrote on late night television shows. It was literally 10 Black women and us being like, "Wow, this is it."

Kai Wright: This is us.

Amber Ruffin: We all fit around the table. It's really sad, but also cool, and then we're still on a text thread. I dare you to find a more supportive community. You're not going to find it.

Kai Wright: Embedded in that story, what came out of you not getting Saturday Night Live was that a few days later, you get a call about becoming a writer on late night.

Amber Ruffin: That's right. Three days of a very sad life. [laughter] Three days of me being sad, but also gaining a little bit of humility that I probably needed. [laughs]

Kai Wright: Oh, well. That also.

Amber Ruffin: Then Seth called and I thought he was calling to apologize or to be like, "Hey, buddy, you did a good job, man. You hang in there." That's what I thought this phone call was, so I kept--

Kai Wright: Because you knew each other already, so you were like, oh, you're getting support.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. I thought how nice of him to call and be like, "Don't cry," but he was not. He was trying to offer me a job, and I was trying to get him off the phone. [laughs] Yes, and then he offered me that job, and then I moved out in six days. I packed up all my stuff and I moved out to the literal most fun job on planet Earth. I always refer to Late Night as Montessori school. This is whatever you felt like doing was correct. As long as you didn't stop someone from doing their job, you can do whatever you wanted.

Kai Wright: You have been writing on that show, again, since 2014. What does it feel like to go from, "Oh no, I didn't get SNL." To, "Okay, I'm going to now be a writer on this show." Did that feel like a big turn that it turned out to be in your life? Or was it just like, "Okay, well, this is what I'm going to do right now."

Amber Ruffin: It felt very, very cool. It is literally the studio next door to SNL. It felt very close to getting SNL in every single way, except it was probably a lot more supportive in that you didn't have to fit a show or write for a guest. You can just say the things you felt like saying. They were really invested in you becoming you. The two EPs were very invested in me becoming the Amber Ruffin who has her own talk show. They saw a whole future for me, whereas I was just like, "Don't embarrass yourself-

Kai Wright: On national television.

Amber Ruffin: -on national television." I do feel like they had a lot of faith in all of us. They still do. It's all because Seth Meyers, his boss was Tina Fey. He's probably always been the sweetest little baby because you can really bully him as much as you want, but I do feel like after you've had a boss who is a woman, and the woman's job is to fix your comedy, you'll never get a more perfect male boss than that.

Kai Wright: That's unusual, right?

Amber Ruffin: Very unusual.

Kai Wright: To think about to have a woman who is in charge of men in comedy.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. You don't get that a lot. 90% of the rooms-- 95%, that you're in when you're writing comedy, you're bulldozed by men today, today, today, all of the time. Then there's this little group of writers who came up around Seth where they just don't have that stink on them. They won't allow that in their rooms and stuff. When we got our job, Seth said, "I could have hired a lot of people for this job. I hired the nicest people I know." He did, and almost no one has left. We freaking love that job. We have the lowest turnover rate.

Kai Wright: That's true, for a decade.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. I'm still there. A lot of us are still there.

[music]

Kai Wright: She's still there and not only as a writer. She also began performing sketches on the show. In 2020, she did something unusual for a late night comedy show. When Black Lives Matter demonstrations spread around the globe following George Floyd's murder, Amber Ruffin opened the show each night for a week by telling stories about her own experiences with the cops. Tell me about that week. What was that creative process like?

Amber Ruffin: What happened was George Floyd was murdered. I wrote a sketch about it. Over the course of the day, it became clear that this hit America more like the way it hit Black people. It was too heavy to do a sketch about so I wrote a rant. Then by the end of the day, we realized it was too heavy for me to even do a rant about. Then we saw the magnitude of this thing and I was like, "You know what we can do is we can talk about exactly what we are talking about." I wrote out a story, and then I read it to them, and they were like, "Throw this out and just say the story." Then we recorded it and then they used it as the cold open all week that week.

They used a different story every day from me and the police. That is what this cop is screaming at me, and I think this is how I die. This man is going to kill me, and I start crying. I just was shocked that people didn't believe the Black people over the cops. Growing up Black, you know better, but it never occurred to me that white people didn't also get it. If you are a Black person and you grew up in a Black neighborhood, then you know for a fact that the cops beat up your favorite preacher's son for no freaking reason because there is no way Jason ever did anything. You know what I mean?

Everybody has those stories like that where you go to school and they go, "Anytime something is wrong, you go talk to the cops." Then you get home and your parents go, "Do not do that. Come home. Come to me. Find any Black adult. Talk to them." Then after George Floyd, I was like, "Oh, I don't think everybody knows this." At my big age, I just thought we were all on the same freaking page. I was like, "This is happening to the freaking happiest screechiest little idiot you've ever met. The most unassuming goofus."

If I've had a gun drawn on me like four times, imagine, imagine. Can you imagine? Then I made sure to tell each of these stories, and every time I told the story, I was like, "This is not all of my stories. This is nowhere close." Just to make sure that these people knew what a regular occurrence this is, and of course, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, so it's probably double regular for me.

Kai Wright: What kind of reaction did you get?

Amber Ruffin: I got a big fat reaction. The whole time I had been on late night, I don't think I'd ever received fan mail, because it was 2020. I got a bunch of fan mail from people being like, "Holy, I didn't know that this was happening." Every letter was from an old white person being like-

Kai Wright: Really?

Amber Ruffin: "-I didn't know about this." I couldn't believe it.

Kai Wright: I thought you were going to say every letter was from a Black person who was like, "Thank you for telling my story."

Amber Ruffin: No, man, not one. Because the Black people, they knew, but these white people were floored by it. I was just like, "Oh, man, they got y'all asses duped." [laughs]

Kai Wright: How do you think about that? When you're thinking about, "Oh, well, this happened, it's what's in the news. We're a comedy show, we're going to talk about it." Then throughout the day, you realize, "Whoa, we have to keep pivoting on this." How do you think about that line about where comedy is useful and where it's not with something heavy? You know what I mean? Is there a line? Just help me understand that process.

Amber Ruffin: In my brain, first is, is this something this show should/could address? How will this affect late night? That's always my first thought. Then my second thought is, how will this affect Black people? Because that's where my allegiance lies.

Kai Wright: It's okay to say.

Amber Ruffin: There's go to be a better way to say it.

Kai Wright: You can say it.

Amber Ruffin: It's true as hell, but I want to bear with it. I just think we have no choice but to be within late night, and then within that if you can provide some comfort to Black people, or if you can validate the feelings of Black people in some way, that'd be great. Then later, I got rough and show and then it was all whatever I wanted to do, we did and that was pretty cool. I didn't have to worry about the show and the show getting to be too Black for its britches, because our britches were Black.

Kai Wright: Were Black. Put another way, representation in comedy. People who would be like, "Who cares? So what?" All the late night hosts are white guys. What does it matter if there weren't Black women on SNL? What is being lost?

Amber Ruffin: A lot is being lost because the world is so through the white lens, but it doesn't feel like anything is being lost, because the world is so through the white lens. The second we get a little bit of footing, it gets taken away. There was a time in 2020 where if you said through the white lens, fricking everybody knew exactly what you were talking about. Then now I feel like the concept has disappeared. Our lack of appetite for diverse comedy is the reason why we need diverse comedy. It's its own problem. The call is coming from inside the house. The snake is eating its own tail. It is what we are is the problem. It's the problem.

Kai Wright: I am Kai Wright. I'm talking with comedy writer and performer Amber Ruffin. Coming up, what it meant to start writing for her own shows. That's just ahead.

[music]

Regina Nasa: Hi, I am Regina a producer here at Notes From America with Kai Wright. I know you're loving this episode. I promise I won't hold you long, but I have to ask, have you seen what we're up to on Instagram? That's where we post questions to you that help shape the conversations that we have on this podcast. Plus it's a great way to keep up with the show. Follow Notes with Kai on Instagram, that's @noteswithKai and we'll talk to you there. Thanks for listening.

Kai Wright: Welcome back. It's Notes From America. I'm Kai Wright. I've been talking with comedy writer and performer Amber Ruffin about her career over the past decade or so, which has been a time in which a number of Black women have created new space for themselves in comedy and found themselves shaping popular culture in general. Amber's work as a writer and cast member on Late Night With Seth Meyers led to her own platform The Amber Ruffin Show, which she created alongside one of her late night writing partners Jenny Hagel. It ran for three seasons winning critical acclaim. I asked her how that experience was different from what she'd done previously.

Amber Ruffin: When you're a Black person and you're writing comedy and you're in a primarily white space, you have to change how you are saying what you're saying, the reference points and stuff. Like if I'm saying old nerdy music I would say Wilson Phillips, but then if I'm saying old nerdy music I'd say Johnny Gill.

Kai Wright: Johnny Gill.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. My first thought is Johnny Gill. I have to do work-

Kai Wright: Translate.

Amber Ruffin: -to get to Wilson Phillips. Then when you're writing in a Black room with all Black people, your first thought is valid. Buddy, nothing is better. Nothing feels better than being like, "Which Babyface song? Not that one, the other one. Yes, that's correct." Then every once in a while you just break into the Black national anthem, because you are on cloud nine. It's the feeling of writing without weights, because you don't have to contort every thought you have to fit. Your very first inkling is right. It's cool.

Kai Wright: Did that change you? Has that changed you in any way since then?

Amber Ruffin: It did because the buck stopped with me and that felt crazy, but it felt like doing a live show. If you do a live improv show, especially in one where you play short form games like whose line is it anyway, it does stop with you. Because if someone yells out lemon in your face and you don't make up a song about lemons being sour, you don't get it. You're going to get in trouble, you're going to get booed. You lose the whole thing. Then this just felt like that, but on a grander, like other people's jobs were a part of it. It was very cool. I feel like me and Jenny will always remember running that show and being like, "This was the most fun."

Kai Wright: When the show ended, the show was canceled, all that, how did you find out about it? I understand it was--

Amber Ruffin: First, I thought it had been canceled because someone told me it had been canceled. It had not. Then we had our third season of like specials, and then we got soft canceled, which is like, you put a little baby to bed [unintelligible 00:35:25] like that. I suppose it could still come back for a special if something happens.

Kai Wright: How did you deal with that? Did it seem like a loss in your life?

Amber Ruffin: Well, I was pretty sad, and I went on vacation to the DR with my sister. That helped, guys. If you want to take Leslie [unintelligible 00:35:46] to the DR, I guarantee you'll have fun. While I was there, I found out that NBC had greenlit my pilot, so we were getting ready to shoot Non-Evil Twin. Then I had that to look forward to. I was only sad for a little bit, but I was quite sad. Then I got over it. I was like, "This can't last forever. I'm a Black lady with a late night show. We can't be doing this forever." I love it.

Kai Wright: This was likely to get a bottle in the first place, but this is a theme for you. Like, "Oh, this great thing. Then it goes, but that's okay, because now there's this."

Amber Ruffin: There is that, that's right. That's true. Then when we shot Non-Evil Twin, I had to go out to LA and figure out how to EP a fricking sitcom was crazy, but then I knew, I was like, "Even though we're shooting this sitcom, the odds are against us." Even though we're doing this late night show, the odds are against us. That's just Black tax. Ooh. Sorry, but it is. It sucks and we're all still paying it.

[music]

Kai Wright: I want to ask you about something you said a few years ago. You had a conversation with my colleague at WNYC Arun Venugopal in which you said, "Key & Peele have done more for Black America than anybody would be willing to give them credit for."

Amber Ruffin: I landed that quote, but it started out squirrely.

[laughter]

Kai Wright: Tell me what did you mean by that?

Amber Ruffin: I'd be shooting from the hip. No, I do think that the way they moved the needle for Black comedy was monumental, because in what studios are willing to have pitched to them, there are two eras, before Key & Peele and after Key & Peele. Key & Peele proved just how profitable Black comedy is, and just how diverse Black comedy is, because when a studio hears something from a Black person, they want it to be a very specific thing.

They only want you to have two or three kind of jobs. They only want you to talk a certain way, but Key & Peele were everyone. They were every Black person they knew, they were every Black person they saw in a pretty realistic way, and everyone was fine with that. Everyone was cool with it, because everyone knows all Black people. Guys, I could talk about Key & Peele forever.

Kai Wright: Not everyone knows all Black people. That's part of the problem.

Amber Ruffin: That's true.

Kai Wright: You have a number of times referred to yourself as goofy and awkward, so I feel okay saying that is something that you're not supposed to see from Black people, period. Let alone comedians and Key & Peele are also quite goofy and awkward.

Amber Ruffin: I feel like I didn't say awkward. You're just saying that. Coming to this conclusion I feel hurt. No, I feel like there is a silliness that white people don't want to see from Black people, but that Black people know exists. Like Black people are goofy as hell. We are very silly. Every human being is very silly. Then to freaking everybody, every time I say through the white lens freaking take a shot, but through the white lens of it all means we have to take ourselves seriously, and that's what leads to the comedy, and that's what leads to the drama. If you do not take yourself seriously as a Black person, you're just a regular ass Black person. You know what I mean?

Kai Wright: Yes.

Amber Ruffin: No one who works in comedy is saying you have to put some respect on my name. No one's going to get up in front of a brick wall, pace back and forth, and be like, "Toilet seats. Put some respect on it." No, we're all silly. Everyone is a silly person, and you can't have the stereotype you crave and have a full human being. You can't do it.

Kai Wright: What's the difference between writing for shows, TV shows, or stand-up, and then writing for Broadway? How is it different, or is it different?

Amber Ruffin: It's very different. Broadway is very big. Television is very small. Upstairs in the room where you change clothes to get ready for the show at Boom Chicago, someone wrote this quote, and I've asked around. I have no idea who wrote it. Someone wrote, "Subtlety plays... with my balls. [laughter]

Kai Wright: Heck, yes.

Amber Ruffin: That is the difference between Broadway and TV.

Kai Wright: Also, this is public radio. [laughs]

Amber Ruffin: Who knows what I meant by balls?

Kai Wright: No one does. Basketballs.

Amber Ruffin: That's right. That's right.

Kai Wright: Basketballs.

Amber Ruffin: You're right. I am the literal worst. The difference between Broadway and TV is that Broadway, you really have to demonstrate every last part of the setup, every last part of the punchline, every last part of the emotion. It has to be out there laid bare. Whereas an eyebrow [unintelligible 00:41:35] do you good on TV, you really have to lay it out. Which is, again, why comedians are great at writing Broadway, because you can't enjoy the punchline if you don't know the setup. We spend a lot of time crafting the setup, and that's all writing a show is. It's a big, fat setup for a big, fat payoff. That's every show of all time.

Kai Wright: Coming back to The Wiz, you have tweaked and changed some things, I imagine. I want to hear what are some of the things. One, I understand, one big difference is Dorothy.

Amber Ruffin: She's now a white woman.

Kai Wright: Is now a white woman in her '80s. So there's that.

[laughter]

Amber Ruffin: Can you imagine? "When I think of home it feel so sad." Dorothy, what?

Kai Wright: Dorothy, as I understand it, is now the same age as the lion and the tin man, as opposed to a child.

Amber Ruffin: A child they'd be creeping on. Yes, we changed that, but we just thought it would be funner if she could really relate to these people. It would also make the whole thing more believable if these people were also young and really taking her advice to heart, and really being led by this young Black leader who's discovering this about herself. That's one change. Another change is, oh, no there's no jive turkey. It was my goal to come in and not modernize it, but to make it timeless. We took out all those '70s slang references, but what if there was one jive turkey still in there? Wouldn't that be a little bit fun?

Kai Wright: I would like to make a plug for at least one jive turkey.

Amber Ruffin: Okay, maybe I'll put in one jive turkey, and then every time they say it, I'll laugh my little butt off.

Kai Wright: Have them just go, "Bada bop, bada beep."

Amber Ruffin: Yes, there it is. "Bap bap, bop bop, jive turkey." They'll be like, "Yes, we love it because you sang a good song."

Kai Wright: No jive turkeys. Dorothy is the same age. You've been touring it. Is there anything that's come up as you've toured that you've been like, "Okay, this is how we're going to improve this." Has anything come out of the pre-Broadway tour?

Amber Ruffin: I feel like the pre-Broadway tour, it's strange because I went to go see one of the last shows of Kinky Boots, and I could instantly tell that this show had been on for years because it had been, like, all of the punch lines had little extra punchlines at the end, because actors be acting. On The Wiz tour, I got to see that firsthand because the audiences are rabid. The actors are shaping this show to the audience, and the audience is losing their mind. It shifts the whole show, and it makes you go, "Well, geez, how are we going to do it?" Are we the rowdiest thing of all time? There is a way you can slang this show, and people will freaking fall out. You could do it in a way where every song gets a standing ovation, people faint, and stuff. I swear to God.

Kai Wright: I'm for that.

Amber Ruffin: I swear to God.

Kai Wright: I vote for that.

Amber Ruffin: Or you could do it in a way where it's understated and beautiful, and the moments soar, and it's less comedic, and it's less silly, and it's more heartfelt. I'm seeing the difference between these two routes. I don't think that a regular person would see it. It's just that I've seen the show a million times, and I'm like, "Which way are we going to fall?" Because each way is valid, and each way is fun. Again, here I am [crosstalk].

Kai Wright: Which way are you going to fall?

Amber Ruffin: Buddy, you got to show up to the Marquee Theater [unintelligible 00:46:11] after April 17th. Come and take a look.

Kai Wright: Wow. Okay.

Amber Ruffin: There is no wrong way. Again, that's how I feel. I feel like The Wiz cannot-- You can't leave The Wiz disappointed because you got to hear no bad news. You know you're not sad.

Kai Wright: Because you got to hear it.

Amber Ruffin: You got to hear no bad news.

Kai Wright: Nobody bring me no bad news. Before I let you go, did it feel like-- It's such an important show culturally to you, to me, to so many of us. Was it scary? Did it feel like you have a sense of some kind of responsibility, or did you approach it with like, "I'm going to have fun. Whatever."

Amber Ruffin: First of all, you said before I let you go. Which reminds me, hey, everyone, download Blackstreet, Before I Let You Go. You just got a completely free--

[MUSIC - Blackstreet: Before I Let You Go]

Kai Wright: That's the track back there.

Before I let go.

Before I let you go away.

Can I get a kiss--

Amber Ruffin: I felt really, really scared at first, until I saw how cool everything was, and then I was like, "Oh, okay." The set is in service of the costumes, and the costumes are in service of the plot. The plot is in service of the words. The words are in service of the choreography. The music is in service of the direction. When you're propped up by all those things, it's like we're all a teepee, and everyone is a part of it, and we're all propping up the show, and we're all leaning on each other. Once you ease into that, then everything feels like extra supported.

In that, you can do whatever your craziest idea was. There are no watered-down things in the show because Shelley encouraged all of us to do whatever was in our hearts. That's what you're going to see when you come see it. You ain't never going to get enough. People are never going to get enough of this show, and that's a guarantee. Also, I have been told more than once to underpromise and over-deliver, and I'm not going to do that.

Kai Wright: You've done the opposite. [laughter]

Amber Ruffin: The show is the freaking best. It's a party, and you're going to love it. I don't want to lie.

Kai Wright: Tell the people the truth.

Amber Ruffin: I'm telling you the truth. You going to fall out. Y'all, I swear.

Kai Wright: Amber Ruffin, thank you so much. This has been such a joy. Amber wrote the book for the Broadway revival of The Wiz, which opens this week. In a few weeks, we are going to have a show all about The Wiz, about its long history and the special place it occupies in Black culture and in many families. It's just one of those heirlooms that have been passed from generation to generation since it premiered on stage in Baltimore about half a century ago. I told you earlier about my own relationship to the show. Amber Ruffin has shared hers, too, and now it's your turn.

Help us commemorate this show and its place in all of our lives by telling me about your own memories associated with it. When did you first encountered The Wiz? What did it mean or represent to you? Do you have a particular family story about it, or maybe you got a favorite song or scene or costume? Whatever it is, tell me about it and what it means to you. You can leave a voicemail at 844-745-TALK, that's 844-745-8255, or record a voice memo and email it to notes@nyc.org. Be sure to include your first name and where you're calling from, and then tune in on Sunday, May 5th, to join our live conversation about this show's history and its future, and thanks.

Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on Instagram, follow us @noteswithkai to check out show highlights and video reels, and much more. This episode was produced by Regina de Heer. Our theme music and sound design is by Jared Paul, additional music by Isaac Jones. Our team also includes Katarina Barton, Suzanne Gabber, Matthew Mirando, Fiona petros, and Lindsay Foster Thomas. I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for spending time with us.

 

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