Anna Drezen

A native of Long Island, Drezen grew up in Massapequa, New York and has identified herself as "half-Jewish."[1] She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2010 where she studied drama.[2] She subsequently earned a certificate in Shakespeare in Performance from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[3] Her mother Irene (née Roarke) is a nurse and her father Warren is a pharmacist and the retired Director of Pharmacy at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York;[4][5] he accompanied her to the 2019 Emmy Awards show.[6] Her older brother is comic artist Rich Drezen.[7] She has a dog named Lady Bird, a Chihuahua-Terrier mix named after the former first lady Lady Bird Johnson.[8]

Drezen is a sexual assault survivor,[9] but prefers not to address the trauma she experienced from acquaintance rape in her stand-up because it "is not the most interesting stuff that I’ve experienced and I don’t feel like talking about it."[10][11][12] She is a recovering alcoholic.[13][10]

Drezen is an editor at large of the feminist humor site Reductress and has co-written the book How to Win at Feminism: The Definitive Guide to Having it All—And Then Some! with the site's founders Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo.[14][15] She has also coauthored the book How May We Hate You? with Todd Dakotah Briscoe. The latter book began as a blog inspired by Drezen's time as a hotel concierge in New York City.[14] She was editor and writer at humor website Cracked.com until 2016.[16]

She is a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB). Together with fellow UCB performer Taylor Moore,[17] Drezen hosted the podcast Ten Ideas from 2013-2016.[18]

Drezen was hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live before the start of that show's 42nd season.[3][19] She has toured college campuses with cast members Alex Moffat and Melissa Villaseñor.[20] and has been a supervising writer on the show since season 44, episode 16, which aired on 30 March 2019.[21] Drezen shared nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series with the SNL writing staff in 2017, 2018 and 2019.[22] In 2020, for season 46, she was promoted to co-head writer.[23]

Previously she has written and performed on Manhattan Neighborhood Network's The Special Without Brett Davis.[24]

In 2019, she performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden on 24 September 2019[25] and was a guest on the Drunk Women Solving Crime podcast.[26]

At the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Drezen premiered Okay, Get Home Safe, a one-woman show inspired by her obsession with true crime podcasts.[27]

• Anna Drezen at IMDb