‘SNL’ Auditioning African-American Female Castmembers

"Saturday Night Live" is finally addressing criticism over the diversity of its cast by holding auditions for an African-American female castmember to be added to the show by January, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Showcase auditions consisting of only African-American women were held in New York and Los Angeles, the first auditions in the history of the show to exclusively focus on minorities.

"SNL" creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels told the New York Times, “All told we’ve seen about 25 people. A lot of the people we saw are really good. Hopefully we’ll come out of the process well.”

"SNL"'s diversity issues became even more glaring last fall when six new castmembers were hired, five of which were white males. Noel Wells, the lone new female castmember, is of Hispanic-Tunisian descent.

The show's last black female castmember was Maya Rudolph, who left "SNL" in 2008.