Cecily Strong Instagram – What a great teacher. Lew Palter. Scratched his big giant ears and hit his “k’s” so wet and reminded us often that as the great Bertold Brecht said- “the proof is in the pudding”. Lew directed me in my second favorite play at CalArts- “Anton in Show Business” by Jane Martin with all the other girls who weren’t cast in the big shows our second year. We started out feeling defeated because we weren’t picked for the bigger shows but ended up feeling like we were in the best show of the season because people loved it (and the proof is in the pudding after all). I played a Polish director named Wikewich and I got to scream to the audience how “I fuck you with my art”. Lew told me he thought I should take a class at the Groundlings. I said no way I’m a serious actor. Turns out Lew was right. I took the class at the Groundlings. It brought me back to Chicago to study improv there. Then I ended up auditioning for Lorne Michaels. Thanks Lew. And thanks because for so many years I got to brag that my teacher was the old guy in Titanic that chose to stay in bed. Lew knew how to live life well. How to teach students to be not only better actors but better people. He got to a beautiful 94. The proof is in the pudding.***oh just while I’m here- wanted to make sure to say to you teachers that I’m sorry you’re dealing with a whole lot of weird fake political bullshit that must make it hard to do your job. What you do is incredibly important and you touch our lives in such huge ways. In ways that mean so much that even social media ostriches lift their heads out of the sand for minute ❤️