| Rachel Dratch | |
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Dratch at the premiere of Baby Mama in New York City, at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival |
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| Born | Rachel Susan Dratch February 22, 1966 Lexington, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, comedienne |
| Years active | 1994–present |
Rachel Susan Dratch (born February 22, 1966) is an American comic actress best known for her roles as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006.
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Dratch was born in Lexington, Massachusetts,[1] the daughter of Elaine, a transportation director, and Paul Dratch, a radiologist.[2] Her younger brother, Daniel, is a television producer and writer, most recently on Monk. Dratch grew up the "class clown type",[1] attending William Diamond Middle School and Lexington High School in Massachusetts.
Dratch attended the National Theater Institute in the fall of 1986, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1988, where she majored in drama and psychology and was a member of the improvisational comedy group, Said and Done.[1]
Dratch was a member of the mainstage cast of the Second City comedy troupe for four years. She received the Joseph Jefferson award for Best Actress in a Revue for the latter two revues in which she performed: Paradigm Lost and Promisekeepers, Losers Weepers. At Second City, she performed alongside future SNL head writers Adam McKay and Tina Fey, as well as future 30 Rock performer Scott Adsit. The first incarnation of her SNL "Wicked" sketch was performed in Second City's Paradigm Lost. In addition to acting, Dratch also played the cello onstage. The theater also hosted the first incarnation of Dratch & Fey (her critically praised two-woman show with Tina Fey), which was later performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, where it was dubbed "the funniest thing to be found on any New York comedy stage" by Time Out New York.
Dratch wrote, directed, and performed in The Vagina Monologues Monologues which was shown in 2001 at the New York Comedy Film Festival.[1]
Dratch has appeared in several movies, including Martin & Orloff, The Hebrew Hammer, Down with Love, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Spring Breakdown, and My Life in Ruins. She also has joined fellow SNL cast members on A.S.S.S.S.C.A.T.: Improv, which aired September 7, 2005, on the Bravo channel. Dratch also made television appearances on NBC's Third Watch and in a recurring role on King of Queens (playing Denise, the on-off girlfriend of Spence, who worked in a bowling alley). Other television appearances include Monk, Frasier, Wizards of Waverly Place, 30 Rock, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and, more recently, the season three finale of Ugly Betty. She recently appeared online with comedian Billy Eichner in a spoof of Jay-Z's and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind," titled "Forest Hills State of Mind."[3]
Dratch was originally cast in the role of Jenna on 30 Rock, and the original pilot episode features her in the role. It did not test well, and the role was recast. She went on to play a variety of small guest roles in several episodes of the first season, including Barbara Walters, Elizabeth Taylor, a cat trainer, a maid and a blue monster.[4]
She has also appeared on the children's show Yo Gabba Gabba!.
She voices Koi and Esmargot from the show Fish Hooks.
Her tenure at SNL spanned 1999 to 2006. Dratch's recurring characters included Boston teens Sully and Denise; Sheldon, the junior-high-school boy from Wake up, Wakefield; the Lovers (with Will Ferrell, as two pretentious professors); Abe Scheinwald, a Hollywood producer; and Debbie Downer, a depressed woman who creeped others out with disturbing non sequiturs.[5]
Dratch was raised in a Reform Jewish family and had a Bat Mitzvah, but is not observant as an adult, characterizing the faith she was born into as part of her cultural heritage.[1]
Dratch met John Wahl, a California-based consultant in the natural foods industry, in a bar in 2009. Six months later, she became pregnant, and gave birth to a baby boy, Eli Benjamin, on August 24, 2010.[6] In an October 2010 interview, Dratch told People that her pregnancy at age 44 shocked her, because she "had bought into all this stuff about, 'Once you're over 40...'", and had "gone through the whole process of letting go of [the idea of having kids]". Wahl has since moved to New York City to be closer to Dratch and their son.[7]