Eager to strike while the middle-class-white-lady-in-prison iron is hot, Fox has started to fill out the supporting cast of its upcoming Dead Boss. Jane Krakowski has already been cast in the lead role as a woman thrown into prison after being wrongfully accused of killing her titular boss. And now Rachel Dratch will play Krakowski’s cellmate Christine, “a sunny but emotionally needy arsonist.”
Since graduating from the Saturday Night Live main cast in 2006, Dratch has guest-starred on shows like Ugly Betty and Bob’s Burgers, but hasn’t yet experienced the success of follow alums like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler. She co-starred with Poehler in a movie called Spring Breakdown back in 2009, but it was released directly to DVD. She signed on to appear in a pilot for NBC back in 2012, but the project has yet to see the light of day. And she starred as Jenna in the original, unaired 30 Rock pilot, but was shortly replaced by Jane Krakowski herself, turning up instead in one-off roles as cat wranglers and cleaning ladies. It remains to be seen whether Dead Boss will give Dratch the breakout that has so far eluded her, or whether she will again be replaced by someone more blonde.