Dreams do come true, Key wrote on Twitter.
It is indeed a dream for most everybody who has performed sketch comedy to one day grace the stage of NBC s long-running comedic institution, which is in the home stretch of its 46th season.
For Key, who was born in Southfield and raised in Detroit, it s the culmination of the 50-year-old s long journey as a performer, which has included six seasons of Fox s one-time SNL rival MADtv and five seasons of Comedy Central s Key & Peele (with his MADtv co-star, Jordan Peele) and which began in the city as a member of the now-defunct Second City Detroit troupe and a founder of Hamtramck s Planet Ant theater.
Keegan-Michael Key Will Do Anything for a Laugh
His new 10-part podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” is a surprising and earnest defense of a relatively unsung art form.
Keegan-Michael Key in 2018. His new podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” involved a lot of research. “I loved school,” he said, so delving into a subject “kind of lights my fire.”Credit.Benjamin Norman for The New York Times
Feb. 1, 2021
There are people who enjoy comedy, people who are nerdy about comedy and then there is Keegan-Michael Key, an actor and producer whose deep and affectionate connoisseurship of jokes puts him closer to the realm of a jurist or sommelier.
On Keegan-Michael Keyâs Podcast, a Provocative Case for Sketch Comedy
The 10-part series mixes history, memoir, analysis and performance to show how classic scenes can be revived just as classic theater is.
Keegan-Michael Key as a substitute teacher in a sketch from âKey & Peele.âCredit.Comedy Central
What if the most impressive post-sketch show career belongs to Key, not Peele?
Sure, itâs a hot take, but hear me out. Jordan Peele followed the Comedy Central hit âKey & Peeleâ by merely becoming one of the greatest film auteurs of his generation, whereas his partner, Keegan-Michael Key, took a more varied route, stealing scenes in âHamletâ at the Public Theater and improvising bits on Broadway, singing in a movie musical, starring in a comedy series, doing prolific voice work in blockbuster movies, hosting a game show and being an absolutely stellar talk-show guest (his conversations with Conan OâBrien are hilarious). Measured by divers