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Rachel Dratch Sends an SOS to the World, and the World Listens

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Just last week, SNL alum Rachel Dratch was kvetching in the pages of our very magazine about the woes of unemployment. So, when we saw her at the Hilton last night, tearing up the dance floor at the after-party for opening night of the new musical A Catered Affair, we pulled her off it and told her we couldn’t believe things were as bad as she’d said. “What I actually said,” she told us, “was, I’m not doing anything, like, right now. But then when I saw the big word ‘UNEMPLOYED,’ I was, like, ‘Oh, shit.’ What I actually said wasn’t as dire as the story. But after that came out — you know, you don’t want to have the stank of unemployment connected to you.”

But there’s a happy ending! “The cute thing is, three people on the street that day…” she paused, visibly moved by the citywide intervention. “Someone out yelled out of a cab, ‘I read New York Magazine, and I think you’re great!’ Another guy came up to me, like, ‘I’m rooting for ya!’ And, actually, a couple days after that, I got a job! At the Westport Playhouse, it’s [the theater famously revived by] Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. This is bad, because I don’t know if it’s called Scrambled with a ‘d’ or just Scramble. So I’ll have to fact-check that.” (You’re close, Rachel: It’s Scramble!) Then, we asked if she had plans for Passover. “I can’t go to Passover,” she said, “because I got another job! I have to go to L.A. tomorrow for a pilot. Oh, and you know what else happened? The Craig Ferguson show called me up a couple of days ago and were like, ‘Hey, will you do the show again?’”

You asked the world for help, we said. “I did,” she answered, with that rosy glow that Jimmy Stewart kind of has at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life when he’s surrounded by money and loving friends and good vibrations. “And they delivered.” —Tim Murphy

Rachel Dratch Sends an SOS to the World, and the World Listens