On Wednesday, Feb. 14, Saturday Night Live breakout star Marcello Hernandez performed a stand-up comedy set exclusively for Dartmouth students. Organized by Programming Board, the show took place in Collis Common Ground at 8 p.m. with opener Maddie Wiener, comedian and host of the podcast “We’re Having Gay Sex.” Hernandez took the stage at approximately 8:30 p.m.
Hernandez is a Cuban, Dominican American comedian originally from Miami. He achieved notable recognition for his TikTok account, @onlyindade, for interviewing several celebrities. In 2022, he was selected as the Just For Laughs New Face of Comedy, and he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live that same year.
“I think it’s always cool to see somebody who’s on the rise,” Sophie Opler ’23, a fan of Saturday Night Live, explained. “I wanted to jump at the opportunity to see him before he takes off like crazy.”
In his main set, Hernandez touched on the way women support each other, Latin immigrant culture and mental health and learning disabilities. Wiener’s opening act broached topics such as body positivity versus body neutrality, sexuality and gender identity and stances on abortion. Wiener joked about her own appearance, saying that she probably did not need to tell the audience that she was queer, and based on the way that she was dressed, the audience probably already inferred it. At another point, Wiener quipped that if she were pregnant, her baby would probably commit suicide, which drew a shocked reaction from the crowd. In response, Wiener teased that “everyone is liberal” until someone makes a suicide joke.
According to PB executive Sierra Lee ’24, this is the fifth Saturday Night Live comedian that PB has brought to Dartmouth, three of whom visited before the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the popularity of Michael Longfellow, last year’s stand-up comedian, PB started planning to bring in Hernandez during the fall term.
“We usually do a little brainstorming session for the upcoming term, and we already had a lot of concerts, so … we knew we wanted to bring a comedian in the winter,” Lee explained. “We brainstormed some people, and his name came up. We all thought he was so funny.”
Due to the popularity of Longfellow’s show last year, PB planned in advance this year for a potentially large crowd. Last year, Longfellow’s show was held in Collis Common Ground, which has limited seating, so PB experimented with different spaces.
“Last year, a lot more people came than we expected. So this year, we looked into Cooke Auditorium, which is the largest available indoor venue,” Lee said. “We offered [Hernandez] Cook Auditorium or Common Ground … [Cooke Auditorium] is very much lecture style … with auditorium seating and no stage lights … [Hernandez] was not interested in that.”
With Common Ground as the hosting venue, this meant that there was a strict cut-off with the number of attendees per fire and safety codes.
In a campus-wide email, PB explained that doors for the show would open at 7:45 p.m., although a long line began to form much earlier. According to Opler, the line went outside of Collis at one point.
Stephanie Lee ’24 was first in line with her friends Lucky Drucker ’26 and Leah Stein ’26, who all got in line around 5 p.m. According to Lee, most people did not start showing up to join the line until around 6:30 p.m.
“I expected a lot of people to be there,” she explained. “I thought a lot more people were going to come a lot earlier, which is why we went so early. I was happy to do it … I love stand-up [comedy], just separately from Marcello … so I was super excited that he was going to come.”
Despite how long the line was and the amount of time both of them spent waiting, Opler and Lee expressed that it was worth it.
“I had an absolute blast. I was belly laughing,” Opler said. “I thought it was awesome that [PB] picked somebody who I felt like was really relevant and topical and who could kind of speak to our age, even though he’s a little bit older.”
Overall, the event was something that both Opler and Lee felt like was a huge draw and done at an apt time.
“I was really excited that they brought a stand-up comedian as compared to something else. I feel like it was a very winter [activity],” Lee said.
Jessica Sun Li '24 is a sociology major and English minor from the suburbs of Chicago. She is currently the Arts editor, and her passion project is the "Dear Mirror" column. Outside of The Dartmouth, she is involved in the figure skating team and sociology research. She really wants to adopt a cat.
