Theater -- Tom Titus

Members of Estancia High School’s class of 1986 will be taking more

than a passing interest when the Tony Awards are passed out June 2, as

one of their former classmates will be called.

When the best featured actress in a musical is announced, the

thirtysomethings from Barbara Van Holt’s drama classes of the mid-’80s

will be crossing their fingers and hoping that they’ll see an old face

with a new name take the stage.

“And the Tony goes to . . . Spencer Kayden for ‘Urinetown.”’ It could

happen. She’s already won this year’s Outer Critics Circle award for her

performance in the offbeat musical, not to mention the 56th annual

Clarene Derwent Award -- the oldest award given for Broadway performers;

it precedes the Tony by three years.

Of course, her name wasn’t Spencer Kayden when she cut her teeth on

improvisational comedy at Estancia. Classmates there knew her as Debbie

Shapiro, but she’s had her new name now almost as long as she had the old

one.

Paul Klees, a classmate and fellow actor now living and working in

Chicago, waxes enthusiastically about Kayden’s past and present

performances. He worked with her on the drama class’ annual original

show, where he watched her develop her gift for improv.

“Spencer spent several years in Chicago as a member of the

Neo-Futurists, writing and performing ‘Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go

Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes,”’ Klees recalled. “I believe they are

still running it.”

Klees also noted that Kayden is the voice of Mrs. Pepper on the

children’s TV show “Blue’s Clues.’

But Spencer Kayden didn’t set out to conquer Broadway after she left

Estancia High. Instead, after her graduation from Northwestern

University, she set about becoming a journalist, working full time as a

senior editor at Scholastic Magazine as recently as last June.

“I had a wonderful job at Storyworks, working with amazing people, and

I was making a contribution to kids,” Kayden said. “Our readers were

third- to fifth-graders.”

It took a gentle shove from her boss at the magazine, editor Lauren

Tarshis, to get the writer/actress to test the professional theater

waters. Tarshis told her she was too talented a performer to remain at a

desk job.

“It’s scary to admit what you really want,” Kayden said of the

transformation. “If you weren’t obtaining a great deal of commercial

success acting, it eased things to rationalize that acting wasn’t really

your primary interest.”

After a a stint with Chicago’s Neo-Futurists, Kayden took the big leap

to New York and soon found herself playing Little Sally in “Urinetown,” a

dark comedy about greed, corruption and love in a city with a water

shortage so severe that people must pay for the privilege of relieving

themselves.

“I’ve known [playwright] Greg Kotis for over 10 years,” Kayden said,

“and he knows me well. He wrote the role for me. I’m lucky I have really

smart friends who wrote an incredible show.”

“Urinetown” was a big hit at the 1999 Fringe Festival, and Kayden

became the only cast member to stay with the show when it graduated to

off-Broadway and, finally, the Great White Way.

When the Tony nominations came out this week, Kayden’s name was among

the 10 nominees from the show -- including best musical, best director of

a musical (John Rando), best performance by a leading actress in a

musical (Nancy Opel and Jennifer Laura Thompson) and best performance by

a leading actor in a musical (John Cullum). Kotis’ book and score (with

Mark Hollmann), choreographer John Carrafa and the orchestrations of

Bruce Coughlin also were nominated.

Previously, “Urinetown” had been nominated for eight 2002 Lucille

Lortel Awards and won for outstanding musical and choreographer. And, of

course, Kayden now has the Outer Critics Circle Award for best featured

actress already on her mantel.

But she’s undoubtedly most excited about joining past winners of the

Clarence Derwent Award, who include Gene Hackman, John Malkovich, Calista

Flockhart, Annette Bening, Christopher Walken, Judy Holliday and Gene

Wilder.

The Derwent award is given to the actor or actress who shows the most

promise on Broadway. And now it belongs to a graduate of Estancia High’s

drama program, who just might top it with the Antoinette Perry statuette

come June 2.

Win or lose, she’ll still be the pride of her class at Estancia. In

her New York dressing room rests a card from her drama teacher, Barbara

Van Holt, with the words “So glad you found some fellow travelers who

share your unique satiric bent.”

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.