Alison Gates

Alison Gates (born 1988 or 1989) is an American comedy writer and actress who is currently a head writer for Saturday Night Live. She previously lived in Chicago and worked with the Second City's touring company and an all-female iO Theater troupe.

Career Improvisational theatre Born and raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Gates said she started doing improvisational theatre in high school, and then continued "in college sort of as a way to meet people." She was part of Yale's oldest improv comedy troupe, The Yale Ex!t Players. She was also a managing editor of The Yale Record humor magazine and graduated from Yale in 2011.

quote=When you get to know other performers in your cast and know their voices and sense of humor, it can be so fun to write pieces that showcase those things. That can be more freeing than writing material for yourself. — Gates on her writing process at the Second City

She said that "one of the great things about performing at Second City" was getting to continually "make tweaks and re-improvise" scenes after having planned with fellow cast members and performed in front of an audience. She also performed with Casual Encounters for iO, Shinbone Alley for Chemically Imbalanced Comedy, and the Fallen Elegant.

After her fourth week at SNL, Gates was noted for her sketch "Teacher Fell Down," which Alison Herman of The Ringer called "a gloriously weird bit from the Jonah Hill episode centering on McKinnon's drama queen of a driver's ed instructor,"

She is a head writer for the show as of the second half of the show's 47th season.