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Authors: Rachel Dratch
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ever gaining weight. Throughout all our time improvising together, up there in front of the Second City audience without a script, Tina and I developed a certain chemistry with each other, a shorthand that has served us over the years. And never did it come in more handy than the time she saved me from exposing myself to an audience of Hollywood bigwigs. I’m not talking aboutexposing my soul or inner thoughts, I’m talking vaginas here, people.
It all started with the sound of RRRIIIP , the loud sound of tearing fabric. I knew that sound could be only one thing … ’twas my pants splitting, and as luck would have it, this was the one night of my life that I wasn’t wearing underwear. I was standing onstage in front of an audience filled with Hollywood bigwigs, agents, and studio executives at the now- defunct HBO workspace in Los Angeles. Tina Fey and I were performing our two-person sketch show Dratch and Fey . We had written and performed the show in Chicago the summer after I moved to LA and she was writing on SNL . The following summer, we performed it in New York at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and it was getting a lot of attention, so we were in LA to show it to industry people there. After I heard the deafening RRRIIIP (deafening to me, anyway), I glanced down to see that my pants had split up the front , starting at the fly and heading downward. A shot of adrenaline went through my body as a prickly feeling took over the back of my neck. At this point in the show, I was sitting on the floor onstage—that’s when my pants had split, when I went to sit on the floor. How bad was it? I looked down again. I saw my own humanity.
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God. This was a two-person show. There were no breaks. I couldn’t run off the stage and somehow fix the problem. Yet how was I going to continue on, with my jive there for the world to see? Prior to the show, in the dressing room with Tina, I had noticed that the pants I was wearing showed panty lines. In New York, doing our show atthe Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, I could have flown with the panty lines. But this was LA! I couldn’t have panty lines in LA! So I happened to say to Tina, “I’m just not going to wear underwear.” It was a throwaway line. We thought nothing of it.
There onstage in panic mode, I carefully got up off the floor for the next little transition moment of the show, where Tina and I faced each other and danced in a sort of stylized make-out move. Loud music played along, so under the music, I blurted out to her “Ijustsplitmypants.” “Grabthatjacket,” she said, without missing a beat. There was a sweat jacket on the floor that had been tossed off by one of the characters we had played earlier. I tied it around the front of my pants for the whole rest of the show. No one noticed. Improvisers who perform together for a long time develop a comfort and a trust that if one is floundering, the others will come in and save the moment. Because of our history, I always knew Tina had my back. Now I knew she had my front too.
Point is, Tina and I had both been in the biz long enough to know that some things are beyond our control. When I was replaced on the show, I felt confident that Tina had “fought” for me as much as she saw fit, but that at the same time, the network has certain demands, and the fact exists that I wasn’t right for the part as it turned out to be. Oddly enough, I didn’t initiate a big Feelings Conversation with her; I didn’t want her to think I was expecting her to solve things for me or fix anything, especially when she was busy trying to get her show off the ground. She had written me a part in her show (as she did for her old pals Jack McBrayer and Scott Adsit as well), she’s always been loyal to her old Chicago gang, and she showsthat loyalty with actions big (“You’re in my show!”) and small (“C’mon over! Jeff’s making doughnuts!”). As for the prospect of a big Feelings
It all started with the sound of RRRIIIP , the loud sound of tearing fabric. I knew that sound could be only one thing … ’twas my pants splitting, and as luck would have it, this was the one night of my life that I wasn’t wearing underwear. I was standing onstage in front of an audience filled with Hollywood bigwigs, agents, and studio executives at the now- defunct HBO workspace in Los Angeles. Tina Fey and I were performing our two-person sketch show Dratch and Fey . We had written and performed the show in Chicago the summer after I moved to LA and she was writing on SNL . The following summer, we performed it in New York at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and it was getting a lot of attention, so we were in LA to show it to industry people there. After I heard the deafening RRRIIIP (deafening to me, anyway), I glanced down to see that my pants had split up the front , starting at the fly and heading downward. A shot of adrenaline went through my body as a prickly feeling took over the back of my neck. At this point in the show, I was sitting on the floor onstage—that’s when my pants had split, when I went to sit on the floor. How bad was it? I looked down again. I saw my own humanity.
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God. This was a two-person show. There were no breaks. I couldn’t run off the stage and somehow fix the problem. Yet how was I going to continue on, with my jive there for the world to see? Prior to the show, in the dressing room with Tina, I had noticed that the pants I was wearing showed panty lines. In New York, doing our show atthe Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, I could have flown with the panty lines. But this was LA! I couldn’t have panty lines in LA! So I happened to say to Tina, “I’m just not going to wear underwear.” It was a throwaway line. We thought nothing of it.
There onstage in panic mode, I carefully got up off the floor for the next little transition moment of the show, where Tina and I faced each other and danced in a sort of stylized make-out move. Loud music played along, so under the music, I blurted out to her “Ijustsplitmypants.” “Grabthatjacket,” she said, without missing a beat. There was a sweat jacket on the floor that had been tossed off by one of the characters we had played earlier. I tied it around the front of my pants for the whole rest of the show. No one noticed. Improvisers who perform together for a long time develop a comfort and a trust that if one is floundering, the others will come in and save the moment. Because of our history, I always knew Tina had my back. Now I knew she had my front too.
Point is, Tina and I had both been in the biz long enough to know that some things are beyond our control. When I was replaced on the show, I felt confident that Tina had “fought” for me as much as she saw fit, but that at the same time, the network has certain demands, and the fact exists that I wasn’t right for the part as it turned out to be. Oddly enough, I didn’t initiate a big Feelings Conversation with her; I didn’t want her to think I was expecting her to solve things for me or fix anything, especially when she was busy trying to get her show off the ground. She had written me a part in her show (as she did for her old pals Jack McBrayer and Scott Adsit as well), she’s always been loyal to her old Chicago gang, and she showsthat loyalty with actions big (“You’re in my show!”) and small (“C’mon over! Jeff’s making doughnuts!”). As for the prospect of a big Feelings
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