How seriously did “Saturday Night Live” take the furor around its lack of a black female performer?

Seriously enough to hold a special audition Monday night on the “S.N.L.” stage for seven or eight candidates, one of whom will be hired and will join the cast for shows beginning in January.

The show’s creator and executive producer, Lorne Michaels, said in an interview on Thursday that he had committed to that timetable to add the show’s first black woman since Maya Rudolph left the series in 2007. Several casting sessions were held over the last few weeks leading to this week’s audition.

“All told we’ve seen about 25 people,” Mr. Michaels said. “A lot of the people we saw are really good. Hopefully we’ll come out of the process well.”

He said he believed that as many as two performers could potentially be considered, but he did not want to add too many women at this time because the cast already includes five.