“Being on set and witnessing the creative process firsthand felt surreal—like being a part of history every week,” Polinsky says. Working on the guest portraits meant brushes with a dizzying range of notables like Jay-Z, Derek Jeter, Paul McCartney, Pedro Pascal, Seth Rogen, and Betty White. Even other stars were dazzled. Among Polinsky’s backstage photos is a 2002 snapshot of Conan O’Brien with the White Stripes; the SNL writer–turned–talk-show host stopped by the studio as a fan of the band.
Set decorator Carol Silverman (MFA 2020 Visual Narrative) found her way to SVA while already in the midst of a successful career that includes work on shows like Boardwalk Empire (2010 – 14), And Just Like That (2021 – ), and, overlapping with her time at the College, SNL. Silverman worked on the show from 2017 through 2021, moonlighting as a graduate student in the latter half of that time. MFA Visual Narrative’s summer semester schedule fit perfectly with SNL’s hiatuses and, like Yonks, she used her SVA connection to recruit talent for the show, bringing on her classmate Michael Sheinkopf (MFA 2020 Visual Narrative) as a production assistant.
At SNL, Silverman was mainly responsible for set-decorating pre-taped segments—spoofs of shows like Chopped (2009 – ) and Love Island (2015 – ), and the 2017 R&B music video parody “Come Back, Barack.” Her last years on the show were defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, when she had a front-row seat to some major changes.
“When I started, our office was on the same floor as the writers’ office,” she says. “They were just across on the other side of the elevator banks, and the halls were lined with stills and portraits of all the cast members from the beginning.” Eventually, the production operation moved to a Brooklyn warehouse to allow for more space and safe distancing.
Whether their experience can be measured in semesters or decades, every SVA alumnus who logged time on SNL is a part of its history, contributing to everything from the way the show looks to how it runs. “It’s super fun to work with so many others who have also gone to SVA,” Yonks says. “I have such a deep admiration for the show and everyone who helps bring it to life. Working at SNL has truly been the experience of a lifetime.”
“It was just fun meeting all the other—I suppose I would call them ‘weirdos’—from high schools around the country, and that we were all in this one place. It felt like destiny. I think that the experience of being an art student, there’s something about it that I sort of still identify with,” Armisen says. “Over the years, once in a while, someone will mention to me that they went to SVA, and it’s really fun and funny when that happens, because it’s rare enough that all of a sudden, I feel very connected to that person.”
Maeri Ferguson is the assistant director of media relations at SVA. Her writing has appeared in No Depression, Glide Magazine, and The Bluegrass Situation.
A version of this article appears in the spring/summer 2025 Visual Arts Journal.