As The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ended its 11-season run this year, on June 29, DGA members gathered online and in the Guild’s New York boardroom for a special evening celebrating the work of the DGA team working on the final season.

Following a welcome by Special Projects Chair Raymond De Felitta, Directors Yvonne DeMare and Jim Hoskinson, Associate Directors Stefani Cohen and Karen Yaeger and Stage Managers Jeffrey Leib and Mark G. McKenna took the audience behind the scenes of the iconic late-night show and broke down what it took to put together five shows a week that featured an opening monologue, taped sketches, interviews, and musical performances during a conversation moderated by DGA Sixth Vice President Lily Olszewski.

“I am a big fan of highlighting the work of live multi-camera work, because sometimes people think it’s TV and it’s not artistry, but as you just saw, it’s art,” said Olszewski. “So, we’re here to celebrate you guys, because you did an amazing work. Congratulations! I just wanted to mention that the last episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had an audience of 6.74 million viewers, the highest rated in the 11th season, and that was including live and same-day viewers.”

“I felt I was just super, super lucky, that I’d gotten everything I could have ever imagined out of working on The Colbert Report and The Late Show. I just was ready to do something different. I will say, I never would have even thought about retiring if I didn’t know that Yvonne was ready to take over,” said Hoskinson about retiring before what would be the show’s final season. “I had talked to Stephen [Colbert] and Tom Purcell, our showrunner, back in March of 2025. We decided we weren’t going to tell anybody. Then in the beginning of July, we met with Yvonne, and we told her, and it was really a great moment. Everyone felt really good about the transition. That was a Monday and on Thursday, the announcement was made that the show was ending, so it was pretty bittersweet.”

DeMare, who stepped into the Director’s chair for the final season noted, “The whole last season was a pinch-me moment. I would say being told that I was going to be taking over was a pinch-me moment, because I never thought it would happen.”

Recalling some of the action from the booth, Cohen and Yaeger shared how they managed the transition in Directors.

“My role was always as the second Associate Director,” said Yaeger. “It kind of was a hybrid where I would work during the day, do the rundowns, be on Scripto, and then, I was also responsible for overseeing the edits at night. I would then — during the show — take notes, take timings, get Director’s notes, have my notes, various notes from various producers. When there was the Director change, it made sense to keep that aspect of my relationship with the post people and the Executive Producer at night to keep that all smooth.”

Cohen, who had only been with the show for nine months before it ended added, “When I had filled in [for Yvonne as an AD], I had used the program a little bit — not to the amount that Karen and Yvonne had — so I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with it. But as you go into any place, it’s just getting used to their system and I was really excited and happy to do it.”

Speaking about their experiences on the floor, Stage Managers Leib and McKenna revealed what it was like working with talent on the show.

“Part of Stephen’s magic is that he thrives in chaos, and he likes to create it to make sure he can thrive in it,” said McKenna. “And that’s been kind of Stephen’s M.O., and we just all understood that was part of the joke. He’s always been extremely generous and compassionate about that. He knows he puts us in that situation. It’s not like he’s going to go, ‘f--- you, do what I’m asking to do.’ He actually knows that he’s throwing us into the lion’s den and loving it. And so do we, because it’s always a feather in your cap when you get through a day like that and be able to say we did it with a certain amount of panache. He inspires you to have to play your best game.”

Leib recalled an especially extraordinary experience from the last show, “That’s [Paul] McCartney. It was the second time he was on the show, but at the end of the show, we all came out on stage, and we were singing crying, playing instruments, tambourines, and stuff like that. That was, like, I’m on stage with Paul McCartney, where it all happened in 1964, we’re all standing where they stood. That was mind-blowing. That was definitely a pinch-me moment. I got to sing Cole Porter with him 3 times.”

Video from this event coming soon to the gallery below.

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