Homicide: Life on Sesame Street?

Broadway baby Kerry Butler knows her way around the block — and not just Theater Row, either. The native New Yorker, who's currently putting down roots as Audrey in the big-time revival of Little Shop of Horrors, has appeared twice on Sesame Street and, even more impressive, lived to tell the tale.

"I went to the wrap party [last year], and I actually saw Snuffleupagus eat a little boy," she reveals to TV Guide Online. But before you go grumbling, "There goes the neighborhood!" let the ingenue finish. "Snuffleupagus spit him back out again, so it was okay. At the wrap party, they play all kinds of jokes and stuff. It was perfect!"

Butler's second visit to Big Bird's turf was especially meaningful to her. On her first visit, she was just a kid. However, upon returning to the avenue, "I was sort of like a celebrity guest. I played the mail carrier and sang, 'Oh, the letter carrier brings the mail... ' — you know, for 'These Are the People in Your Neighborhood.'"

Needless to say, ever since Aunt Kerry has been considered the coolest thing by her nieces and nephews. "But I've always been the coolest thing," the Hairspray alumna notes with a laugh. "I was Belle in Beauty and the Beast, after all!

"But," she adds, "it was actually very traumatizing for my little nieces to see Beauty and the Beast for the first time. They kept going, 'Oh my God, what's he doing to Aunt Kerry?!' It freaked them out." So an introduction to Snuffy is pretty much out of the question, then, eh?