SNL Meets Creative Writing Class

“I’ll exquisite day you, buddy, if you don’t get down off that bag this minute.”

You may recognize this line, if you’ve read J.D. Salinger’s short story Teddy. The line was on a list of “Effective Openers” I received in Creative Writing class my senior year of high school. This was no ordinary class - to this day it remains among the most memorable of my life.

Like most great classes, it was all about the teacher. Beverly Adler was in her twenties, beautiful, sharp, warm hearted and very, very funny. There was something else in the alchemy of that class though. Saturday Night Live was in its second season and on fire. Like SNL, Ms Adler broke all the rules. She was silly, irreverent and emblematic of the changing world. Monday morning class was an excited communion on the latest John Belushi/Danny Akroyd/Gilda Radner sketches, to the utter delight of her students. Other days she might share an anecdote about her husband Howie, providing a glimpse into her personal life that was thrilling.

The seventies were a rich era. The chaos and heartbreak of the sixties had quieted, culture continued to break open, and the stale boundaries of teaching were, for the moment, more porous. There were potluck dinners at Beverly's home. She taught a theater class that involved a ton of live productions - local theater, college performances, even Broadway. She was the free spirited fuel that fed our teenage hunger for art - and life - beyond our small town.

Ms. Adler knew what she was doing, bringing SNL into the classroom. Examining outrageous sketch comedy made quick work of the writing she taught: how to grab attention, the power of humor, of surprise, of detail, of incongruity. How to get unstuck. The use of irony. The hilarious subtexts she’d assign to names: “Never trust a Cheryl.”

We’ve stayed in touch over the years, or she and my friends in Massachusetts have. She’s now simply Beverly. Howie is long gone, and everyone’s a little weary from the battle. SNL has gone the distance too: it was its fiftieth anniversary this year that made me think back to its beginning, and inextricably to Beverly. Being around her is still the greatest of pleasures - her laugh, her style, watching her spark to a turn of phrase, a one liner, a reference.

Looking back, I see her influence on me even more clearly, how she was a seminal “woman in the workplace.” Her gift wasn’t her fun, entertaining classes, not wholly. Her gift was her. Her persona.The relaxed familiarity and joy she brought to everything made us want to give our best. And it made me want to be exactly the same way in the world. So, while she surely showed me how to be a better writer, what she showed me, far more crucially, was how to just be.