IN the wake of losing the bulk of its female cast, “Saturday Night Live” will add two women to its lineup this week.
Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins are joining the show as featured players, an “SNL” spokesman confirmed yesterday.
Elliott, originally from Wilton, Conn. comes to “SNL” via the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater – the improv/sketch troupe co-founded by “SNL” alum Amy Poehler – where she trained and performed in both their New York and LA theaters.
Elliott has also performed with LA’s famed Groundlings Theater.
Watkins, born upstate in Syracuse and raised in Boston, also comes to “SNL” from the Groundlings Theater, where other cast members such as Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman, Laraine Newman and Kristen Wiig got their starts.
While “SNL” has been drawing some of its best ratings in years, mostly thanks to the presidential election, the show is also going through a transition.
Three of its most popular cast members, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler, have left.
All three appeared on the show this season, with Fey (who has been gone for two seasons), especially, turning heads with a memorable impersonation of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Poehler just had a baby and is expected to get her own NBC sitcom next year, while Rudolph has moved to LA.
Despite the new casting, it is still not known who will permanently play First Lady-elect Michelle Obama.