Jenna Maroney (born February 24, 1969) is a fictional character on the American television series 30 Rock, played by Jane Krakowski.

In Tina Fey's original pilot script for 30 Rock, Jenna was named "Jenna DeCarlo", and The Girlie Show was titled Friday Night Bits with Jenna DeCarlo. In the unaired pilot for the show, Rachel Dratch, a former SNL cast member, played the role of Jenna. In August 2006, executive producer Lorne Michaels announced that Dratch would be replaced as Jenna. Later in the month, NBC announced that Krakowski had replaced Dratch, and that the character was renamed "Jenna Maroney".

Despite being credited as a regular, the character does not appear in every episode, having been absent from five of the twenty-one episodes of the first season and three of the fifteen episodes of the second season.

In 2009, 2010, and 2011, Krakowski was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the role.

Jenna was born Yustrepa Gronkowitz on February 24, 1969 in Tampa, FL and grew up in Bakersfield. Jenna's father, Werner (or possibly Travis) Maroney, was a burger-server in suburban Santa Barbara, before leaving her mother, Verna for a "curly-haired surfer" named Roberta - which hurt her. After that, her mother forced her to sit on every mall Santa's lap in Bakersfield in an attempt to find him. It is hinted that because of this, Jenna has developed "daddy issues". However, despite all this, Jenna still expresses affection for her father, claiming that she will always be his "little girl".

Rachel Susan Dratch (born February 22, 1966) is an American comic actress best known for her roles as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1999 to 2006.

Dratch was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, the daughter of Elaine, a transportation director, and Paul Dratch, a radiologist. Her younger brother, Daniel, is a television producer and writer, most recently on Monk. Dratch grew up the "class clown type", attending William Diamond Middle School and Lexington High School in Massachusetts.

Dratch attended the National Theater Institute in the fall of 1986,^{[citation needed]} and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1988, where she majored in drama and psychology and was a member of the improvisational comedy group "Said and Done".

Dratch was a member of the mainstage cast of the Second City comedy troupe for four years. She received the Joseph Jefferson award for Best Actress in a Revue for the latter two revues in which she performed: Paradigm Lost and Promisekeepers, Losers Weepers. At Second City, she performed alongside future SNL head writers Adam McKay and Tina Fey, as well as future 30 Rock performer Scott Adsit. The first incarnation of her SNL "Wicked" sketch was performed in Second City's Paradigm Lost. In addition to acting, Dratch also played the cello onstage. The theater also hosted the first incarnation of Dratch & Fey (her critically praised^{[citation needed]} two-woman show with Tina Fey), which was later performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, where it was dubbed "the funniest thing to be found on any New York comedy stage" by Time Out New York.^{[citation needed]}

Jane Krakowski (pronounced /krəˈkovski/; born October 11, 1968) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her performance as Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has received three Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also regularly performs on the stage and won a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway revival of Nine and an Olivier Award for her role as Miss Adelaide in the West End revival of Guys and Dolls.

Krakowski was born Jane Krajkowski in Parsippany, New Jersey. Her mother, Barbara (née Benoit), is a college theater instructor and producing artistic director for the Women's Theater Company, and her father, Ed Krajkowski, is a chemical engineer. She has an older brother. Krakowski's father's family is entirely Polish and comes from Kraków, and although she only knows a few words in Polish, her father and grandparents are fluent. Krakowski was a childhood classmate of astronaut Garrett Reisman.