Spencer Kayden

Spencer Kayden is an American actress, comedian, and writer originally from Orange County, California, where she grew up as the only daughter among four siblings. Her father worked as a pop-up book publisher and her mother as a psychotherapist. Kayden studied drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and subsequently joined the Chicago cast of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. She relocated to New York in 1993 to participate in the show's New York run.

Kayden's Broadway career spans 2001 to 2012 and encompasses three productions. Her first major New York theatrical credit came through Urinetown, in which she originated the role of Little Sally — a pigtailed girl whose function in the story involves helping explain the plot to the audience — appearing in the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival production before continuing into the original Off-Broadway and Broadway casts in 2001. She returned to the role in 2003. Her performance earned her a Theatre World Award in 2002. She later starred in Funny Girl on Broadway and appeared in the farce Don't Dress for Dinner, playing the role of the cook. That production ran at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago from November 2008 to January 2009 before Kayden reprised the role in the Broadway production, which opened in March 2012 at the American Airlines Theatre.

Her theater work brought her to the attention of Fox executives, who cast her as a featured performer on the sketch comedy series MADtv. Kayden also provided the voice of Mrs. Pepper on the Nickelodeon children's series Blue's Clues beginning in 1996, taking over the role from Penelope Jewkes after the first season.

In her personal life, Kayden is the sister of film director Michael Almereyda. She has been married to actor Mark Harelik since 2004, and the two have one child together. Among the acting figures she has cited as idols are Irene Dunne, Peter Sellers, and Frances McDormand.