WATCH: A pre-stardom Tina Fey gets laughs live with 'Dratch & Fey'

By the time 1999 rolled around, Tina Fey had already long ago left behind her homeland in Upper Darby for greener pastures at Chicago's Second City theater. That same year, she was hired as head writer at Saturday Night Live alongside castmember Rachel Dratch—but not before the pair put on a steller two-woman show dubbed Dratch & Fey.

A VHS recording of one of the runs of Dratch & Fey recently hit the web, showing the two comediennes on the edge of stardom some 15 years ago. Described a show with "one foot in the absurd and another in the socially conscious" in a 2000 Wall Street Journal review, Dratch & Fey pits Dratch's Edwina Garth, a woman's rights leader, again Fey's modern woman as the former explores her sexuality. The result, of course, is conscientious, absurd hilarity--what Fey does best to this day.

With any luck, that will never change. Check out Fey's performance above.

[Slate]