SNL’s 85-year-old carpenter has worked on every episode — and has an idea who could replace Lorne Michaels
nypost.comA great deal has changed since “Saturday Night Live” first aired in 1975, but one carpenter has remained a constant. Stephen “Demo” DeMaria, 85, has helped build the sets for every one of the show’s 960 episodes. “I never missed no show,” the Brooklyn native told The Post in his thick accent.
The weekly production schedule is an adrenaline-fueled race. DeMaria, who now lives in Staten Island, comes into the shop at 1 a.m.
on Thursdays. By 2 a.m., he gets sketches of the sets the show will need for the week. Then, he divides up the work between five crews and about 50 carpenters.
They have barely 36 hours to get everything built by Friday night. “You gotta know who can do what,” he said. “Some of these sets are really hard to do, and you gotta have the right people – I give out all the sets to different guys.” Not all the sets make the cut.
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