USA’s Playing House is usually a pretty light show, mostly serving as a platform for stars Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair to crack each other up with increasingly tortured takes on the English language. Its next season is set to get at least a little more serious, though, with St. Clair revealing today that it’ll reflect her own recent battle with breast cancer.
St. Clair posted an essay on the cancer support site Stand Up 2 Cancer today, revealing that, “In the new season, my character, Emma, gets diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes the exact treatment I did. We were worried about bringing such serious subject matter to a comedy show, but we’ve always written what we’ve lived.” St. Clair was diagnosed with stage 2b estrogen positive breast cancer shortly after the show’s second-season finale; her essay delves into the personal details of her diagnosis, including her new tendency to drag women into closets to show off her “new boobs” and demystify the process of mastectomy, and the various “chemo hacks” that she, her husband, and her “comedy wife” Parham employed to help her stay active and healthy-looking for the benefit of her two-year-old daughter.
Playing House returns to USA on June 23.