Saturday Night Live to air with no studio audience, limited cast for Paul Rudd episode due to COVID concerns

UPDATE: Shortly after this announcement, musical guest Charli XCX revealed that her performances would have to be cut from the show as a result of Saturday Night Live reducing the size of its crew.

"Due to the limited crew at tonight's taping of SNL my musical performances will no longer be able to go ahead," the pop singer-songwriter wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. "I am devastated and heartbroken. Myself, Caroline [Polachek], Christine [and the Queens] and all of our crews and teams have worked so hard all week alongside the SNL team to bring the most amazing musical performance to life. IT can't happen this time but I'll be back! I am currently safe and healthy but of course very sad. Please look after yourselves out there and make sure you get vaccinated if you haven't already."

EARLIER: Saturday Night Live will still be coming to you live from New York — just not in front of a studio audience.

The NBC sketch show will go on without audience members for Saturday night's episode, hosted by Paul Rudd, amid escalating concerns over the Omicron COVID-19 variant in New York City. The cast and crew for the episode will also be scaled back.

"Due to the recent spike in the Omicron variant and out of an abundance of caution, there will be no live audience for tonight's taping of Saturday Night Live and the show will have limited cast and crew," an SNL spokesperson said in a statement provided to EW and posted to social media just hours before the live broadcast. "The show continues to follow all government safety guidelines in addition to a rigorous testing protocol."

This seems to be the first time SNL will air without any audience for a live show. The series closed out its 45th season with three virtual episodes before returning to Studio 8H for season 46 in fall 2020, with audience members paid to attend if they followed health and safety guidelines.

The move comes as more and more live events have been canceled or postponed, evoking the early days of the pandemic. Earlier this week, numerous Broadway shows canceled performances due to company members testing positive for COVID -19, including Hamilton, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, and Mrs. Doubtfire, while the Rockettes called off their Christmas Spectacular shows for the remainder of the season.

SNL airs live Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

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