good night

and good luck

your First Entertainment Job will, for better or worse, shape everything else you do. if you’re unlucky, Scott Rudin will shove you out of a moving car on the Triborough Bridge (unfortunately: hilarious). if you’re lucky, you will be surrounded by kind, hard-working, creatively, generous people who make you feel like maybe this wasn’t an insane way to spend your life. The Late Show was full of those kinds of people, and also one guy who probably would have shoved someone out of a moving car, but he quit a long time ago.

no matter how many years pass (six so far), the three i spent there always feel like they’ve just ended. to indulgently reminisce: i cycled through a few titles there, but the internship was probably the best job i’ll ever have. you get paid — minimum wage, but paid nonetheless — to spend ~six months scurrying around the bowels of a historic theater full of shiny famous people in the greatest city in the world. “Can you pick up a prop from Silvercup?” it would be my honor. “Can you run this down to airlock?” past the Elephant Columns they had to install so PT Barnum could bring his full circus onto the same stage the Beatles would play a few years later? you got it. “Can you make a cup of tea for Helena Bonham Carter?” already know how she takes it; i’ve had this dream ten times. (and to answer the most common question: the sweetest guest i ever encountered on the show was Ann Dowd. the meanest was Kate Walsh. really ran the gamut on redheads.)

after the internship, i got hired full time. in the beginning i spent most of my days moony-eyed at everyone’s talent, bashfully admiring people i’d spent my childhood watching and teenage years retweeting. eventually i found my footing. learned how to organize someone else’s life, sometimes to the detriment of my own. hung backstage at cool events. helped coordinate a sing-a-long years in the making. learned how to outpace my boss’s car on a citibike when he forgot things at the office. landed some jokes on the air. pulled the occasional 18-hour day when we taped a live show. worked one block away from my dad! watched my little sister shadow the control room and meet Paul McCartney! learned how to properly open “fan mail” after a fistful of white powder spilled out of an envelope and into my lap. it wasn’t anthrax but totally could have been! working at Late Show opened so many doors and asked a lot of us in return. like everyone there, i gave it all willingly, and would again.

lots of jobs come at the direct expense of your personal life. people might not think of late night comedy as being one of those careers, but it is. it’s not like working in an ER or anything, except for the many ways it is (grueling hours, bleak material, rapid consolidation by soulless corporations, etc). whether you’re a crew member, a writer, a producer, a director, an assistant, or an intern, your social life and mental health will suffer. there will be stretches of time you see your coworkers more than your family and friends. nobody “takes time off” — people schedule their dates, dream vacations, weddings, honeymoons, and pregnancies around communal hiatuses. imagine sustaining that intensity with the same people for 30 years. it only works if you really like each other, and really believe in what you’re doing. allowing work to occupy a high slot in your life can make you feel like the villain of a Hallmark movie, but if you have the privilege of loving your labor, how could you live any other way?

it’s unlikely i’ll ever work with the same group of people for 30 years. just being in the proximity of people who had was such a rare treasure. there’s really nowhere else like it. when else in late night history have such a large group of people endured so much, so closely, for so long? people lived and died alongside each other at that show. there are a not-insignificant number of children who exist because their parents met there. the shared language, history, and sheer amount of personal and technical knowledge in that theater is unparalleled anywhere else in entertainment. there’s a level of skill, love, and trust there that can only bloom with time. this specific alchemy will be impossible to replicate. but once you know that’s possible — to build and become home for one another — you can let that feeling guide you for the rest of your life. an atomized, automated existence wants you to forget this. art is a dangerous reminder.

much has been said about what this means For Democracy, and of course the answer is nothing good. it is scary and bad and i’m obviously enraged that 200 excellent jobs, many of them union, have been deleted from the entertainment landscape. i’m furious that my brilliant friends were putting out popular, quality work and are now needlessly adrift in an industry that’s eroding at alarming speed. but i spend a lot of time being mad — occupational hazard. we can put that on the shelf for later. i can’t let my fury for what should still be eclipse my gratitude for what was.

it’s been six years since i left, and still, whenever i find myself in midtown, i walk down 53rd street, knowing i’ll run into someone — friends from security or the crew or my favorite old deskmate popping out of rehearsal. it was only recently i realized how much comfort i derived from the knowledge that so many people i love were still making something beautiful in that place. the loss of that is devastating, even for a visitor like me.

two springs ago, my friend and former boss died. for seventeen years, she was the beating heart of that family. the day after, in a thick fog of grief, i drifted over to the theatre without really meaning to. i was so shattered, so cripplingly lonely, and the only people who would understand were in that building. when we saw each other, we didn’t even have to speak. we held each other and wept. they let me come home. the grief didn’t disappear, and still hasn’t. but like all heavy loads, it’s easier to bear together, and lighter with laughter.

long live the miracle of Late Show. what a beautiful blip in time. so many people worked so hard for so long to make something that was silly and pure (on good days) and principled and necessary (on harder ones). i’m so proud to have been one tiny sprinkle on the sundae. i wish i could capture it in a way you could taste. i tried.