Amber Ruffin
Amber Mildred Ruffin (born January 9, 1979) is an American comedian, television host, writer, actress, author and playwright. She hosts her own late-night talk show titled "The Amber Ruffin Show" on NBC and Peacock. She has been a writer for "Late Night with Seth Meyers" since 2014. When she joined the show, she became the first Black woman to write for a late-night network talk show in the United States. In January 2021, she co-authored a book with her sister, titled "You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism", which was  placed on the "New York Times" Best Seller list. Early life and education. Ruffin was born in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1996, she graduated from Benson High School. Ruffin is the youngest of five children. As a child, Ruffin learned Signing Exact English to communicate with a deaf neighbor. Career. In 2001, Ruffin began performing in local theater productions and improv in Omaha. While performing with her improv troupe at an event in Chicago, Ruffin met comedian and owner of iO Theater Charna Halpern. Halpern encouraged Ruffin to move to Chicago, as she believed Ruffin would "have a full-time job , doing comedy, within the year". In 2008, after finishing her classes at iO, Ruffin moved to Amsterdam to work as a writer and performer on the improv comedy troupe Boom Chicago Amsterdam. After returning to the United States, Ruffin performed as part of The Second City in both Denver and Chicago, where she first met future "Late Night" co-writer Jenny Hagel. In 2011, she moved to Los Angeles, where she joined the YouTube comedy group "RobotDown", featuring Jessica Lowe, Carlo Corbellini, and Davey Vorhes, and appeared on an episode of "Key & Peele". She also joined the nationally recognized sketch  and musical comedy troupe Story Pirates, where she performed sketches based on stories written by kids. Ruffin was also a member of Sacred Fools Theater Company, where she performed a serialized version of "King of Kong: A Musical Parody", a two-woman show parodying the documentary "The King of Kong"; the musical was co-written with co-star Lauren Van Kurin and directed by fellow Boom Chicago alum Brendan Hunt, with music by David Schmoll. "King of Kong" subsequently appeared at the 2014 New York International Fringe Festival, where it won Best Overall Musical 2014, and the 2015 Hollywood Fringe  Festival (with Hunt subbing for an unavailable Ruffin), where it won Best Musical & Outstanding Songwriting. The show returned to Sacred Fools in September 2016 for a performance attended by parody target Billy Mitchell himself. In 2013, "Saturday Night Live" received backlash for not having any Black women on the cast. Ruffin auditioned for the show in 2014 alongside Tiffany Haddish, Leslie Jones, Gabrielle Dennis, Nicole Byer, Simone Shepherd, and Bresha Webb. Ruffin was unsuccessful in her audition. A few days later, Seth Meyers called to ask her to be a writer on his new late night show. Ruffin has been  a writer on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" since the show's start in 2014. In addition to writing, she also appears in several recurring segments on the program including: "Amber Says What?", "Amber's Minute of Fury", "Jokes Seth Can't Tell" (with fellow writer Jenny Hagel) and "Point, Counterpoint". Near the beginning of the George Floyd protests, Ruffin opened a week's worth of shows by retelling her experiences with police officers and police brutality. Meyers also interviewed Ruffin as a guest for the show's 1,000th episode. When not writing for "Late Night", Ruffin wrote for the  Comedy Central show "Detroiters" and was a regular narrator on the Comedy Central show "Drunk History". In 2017, Ruffin developed a single-camera comedy show, "Going Dutch", but the series was not ordered. She was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award in the category "Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) Series" in 2017. In February 2018, Ruffin hosted the 70th Writers Guild of America awards ceremony. In 2019, NBC ordered a pilot presentation for Ruffin's single-camera comedy series "Village Gazette". The same year, Ruffin was a writer for the first season of "A Black Lady Sketch Show" on  HBO. On January 16, 2020, it was announced that Ruffin would host her own late-night talk show on NBC's streaming service Peacock titled "The Amber Ruffin Show". The show premiered on September 25, 2020. The show breaks away from the typical late night structure, foregoing guests and focusing instead on topical sketches. The show was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award in the category "Comedy/Variety Sketch Series" in 2021. The show was also nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar co-authored  a book, titled "You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism", which was released on January 12, 2021, and was placed on the "New York Times" Best Seller list. In February 2021, it was announced that Ruffin is set to co-write the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of "Some Like It Hot" alongside Matthew Lopez.