A little over a week from now, we’re about to get a whole lot more of Late Night With Seth Meyers writer Amber Ruffin. Her new Peacock late-night series, The Amber Ruffin Show, debuts on Friday, September 25 and will feature, as Ruffin put it, “jokes, sketches, and, of course, thoughtful monologues on how to defeat systemic racism. It’s a laugh riot!” The show has a lot of great people involved behind the scenes: Ruffin will be joined by her frequent Late Night collaborator and “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” co-star Jenny Hagel as executive producer and head writer, and Late Night’s Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker are also executive producing.
Additionally, Ruffin has lined up a small but impressive writing staff for the Peacock series, which she hinted to Vulture in our interview with her on September 4. Under Hagel as head writer, the staff includes Demi Adejuyigbe, Shantira Jackson, and Dewayne Perkins, all accomplished comedians and writers with numerous credits like The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Busy Tonight.
“Shantira, Demi, and Dewayne are so incredibly smart and funny. I feel really lucky to be working with them. Also, they’re all younger and cooler than me, so they make me feel younger and cooler by association,” Hagel told Vulture on the news. Added Ruffin: “I hired my three favorite writers. I’m so crazy lucky that we got our first choices! And since we started the room, we’ve received confirmation that they are, in fact, the fucking shit.”
Here’s more info on each writer from Peacock:
Demi Adejuyigbe is a writer and comedian based in Los Angeles. He’s written for The New Yorker, Guardian, Pitchfork, Marvel, Cartoon Network, and MTV, though he’s best known as a writer on The Good Place & The Late Late Show With James Corden, and for hosting the podcasts Gilmore Guys and Punch Up the Jam. He also co-hosts the monthly comedy show Everything’s Great! at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles.
Shantira Jackson was most recently a consulting producer and writer on the reimagined version of Saved by the Bell for Peacock. Previously she was a staff writer on the E! series Busy Tonight, the Comedy Central pilot The Reductress Hour, the BET sketch show 50 Central and a consulting producer on the CNN series, She the People. She has also written for The WGA Awards, The Webby’s and The ESPYS. She is a member of the critically acclaimed improv group 3Peat and you can catch her weekly featured on the Cloud10 podcast Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best!
Dewayne Perkins is a writer, comedian, and actor from Chicago, currently residing in Los Angeles. Most recently, Dewayne is a co-producer on NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, as well as a consulting producer on the upcoming new Peacock version of Saved by the Bell, and writer on The Amber Ruffin Show for Peacock. He is co-writing the feature film The Blackening with Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip), based on the Comedy Central viral short of the same name written by Dewayne. Variety named Dewayne one of the “10 Comedians to Watch in 2020” and additionally, he has garnered recognition by publications such as Vulture, The New Yorker, NPR, Comedy Central, NBC, and TimeOut, having performed as both a solo stand-up comedian and a member of the critically-acclaimed improv group 3Peat and The Second City Touring Company.
“I keep a deep roster because people ask me all the time if I know any Black comedy writers. Once, a couple years ago, I realized everyone I knew who was on my list had been hired. I was like, Oh my God, I better get out there. So I started to go see comedy shows and stuff, just so I could have a bench of people,” Ruffin explained in her interview with Vulture. “But I chose the people I chose because they are the best. They just so happen to be Black, but they are the best comedy writers that I know. They give me a ton of jokes, and they have these great ideas that are fun and weird and obey the genre of late night real hard or subvert it completely. They really have a crazy range, and they’re younger than me, so that is a plus.”
Check out the trailer for Ruffin’s new show below:
