Spencer Kayden Discusses Her Return to Broadway A DECADE ago Spencer Kayden stole New Yorkers" black, black hearts as Little Sally in the dystopian musical "Urinetown." But shortly after making her big Broadway splash she disappeared from the East Coast altogether. Now Ms. Kayden is back in New York, and more important, back on Broadway. She recently snagged her second Tony nomination - her first was for "Urinetown" - for her current role in Marc Camoletti's sex farce "Don't Dress for Dinner." Alternately deadpan and frenetic, Ms. Kayden, 43, plays a French cook caught up in the madcap shenanigans of two British couples who rely on her improvisational skills to hide their own extramarital dalliances. In a review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote, "Employing a pinched, nasal French accent of stage stereotype, Ms. Kayden is very funny in her sniffing acceptance of the absurd behavior of her employers." Ms. Kayden met with Catherine Rampell for lunch last week to talk about her two Broadway appearances, her background in sketch comedy and balancing family life with her career. Q. Welcome back to New York. No doubt lots of theatergoers probably have fond memories of you as that subversive sweetheart Little Sally. A. Yeah, I can't wear pigtails anymore. That hairstyle is just completely ruined for me, because if I do it, I just feel like I'm trying to be Little Sally again, like I'm walking around begging for people to recognize me. Q. So what have you been up to in the 10 years since "Urinetown?" A. My standard response is that I was in a women's correctional facility. Actually I went to L.A. traipsing after my now-husband [the actor Mark Harelik]. I thought I was just going for three months, so I sublet my apartment, and then I just didn't come back. Soon I was married and pregnant. I realized that I had moved to L.A. when I hadn't really meant to. A lot of my friends there are also New York actresses who have wound up in L.A., not working, and we kind of look at each other like, "Who are we now?" Some of them have said to me, "I feel like I've been nominated for a Tony." Q. Your husband, your mother and your brother have all worked in entertainment too. Do you think your son, Haskell, 6, will become a performer someday? A. Well, he's a total goofball, and he's a gymnast. I have aspirations that he'll go to clown college because it will probably be cheaper. Q. For several years in Chicago and New York you did "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind," a revolving revue of 30 plays in 60 minutes. What was your favorite play from that time? A. "How Long Does It Take the Neighbors to Tell You to Shut the ___ Up?" The audience would choose one of us and that person had to go outside and start ranting really, really loudly about something. Then we would time how long it took someone in the neighborhood to open a window and say, "Shut up!" Q. Do you think Urinetown will be revived someday? A. I have no idea. Sometimes I feel like "Avenue Q" or even "Book of Mormon" might not have happened without "Urinetown." "Urinetown" sort of paved the way, just in terms of what Broadway would accept in its houses. It just blows my mind, the stuff "Book of Mormon" gets away with. It's way farther across the line than "Urinetown" ever was. Q. Speaking of artistic obscenities, I understand that in your free time you make cross-stitch embroideries with off-color messages. A. One of my favorites is "Please don't do coke in the bathroom," decorated with little ducks and chickens and rabbits. It's been popular.