Photo Coverage: Angela Lansbury After Her Final 'BLITHE SPIRIT' Performance

Variety reported last week that the Broadway revival of "Blithe Spirit" recouped its investment cost of $2.68 million. Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit began preview performances on Thursday, February 26, 2009 and opened on Sunday, March 15, 2009.

Angela Lansbury won a Tony Award, her fifth, for her performance as Madame Arcati in the Coward hit.

Angela Lansbury, who last appeared on Broadway in Deuce, has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional career spans more than a half-century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, and now as a five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway star and most recently as the star of "Murder, She Wrote," the longest-running detective drama series in the history of television. The actress made her Broadway debut in 1957 when she starred as Bert Lahr's wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. One year later, she starred on Broadway in her first musical, Anyone Can Whistle. Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame, for which she won the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards as Best Actress in a Musical. She received the others as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968), as Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979). From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on "Murder, She Wrote," for which she won four Golden Globe Awards. In 1982, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 1994 she was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. Angela and her husband Peter were married in 1949. They worked together until Peter's death in January 2003. Angela has three grown children, Deirdre, Anthony and David, and three grandchildren.

Two time Tony Award winner director Michael Blakemore (Kiss Me, Kate; Copenhagen, City of Angels, Noises Off!) led The cast of this recent addition to the Great White Way which stars 5 time Tony-award winner Angela Lansbury (Sweeney Todd,Gypsy, Dear World, Mame), Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, An Ideal Husband), two-time Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole (Grey Gardens, 42nd Street), and two time Tony nominee Jayne Atkinson ("24", "Recount" Enchanted April). Simon Jones (Waiting in the Wings, The Real Thing), Deborah Rush (Noises Off!) and Susan Louise O'Connor (Walk Two Moons) round out the cast.

The creative team included sets by Tony Award nominee Peter J. Davison (Copenhagen, Democracy, Medea), lighting by three-time Tony Award winner Brian MacDevitt (The Coast of Utopia, The Pillowman, Into the Woods), and costumes by Tony winner Martin Pakledinaz (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Gypsy, Wonderful Town).

Blithe Spirit was produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Steve Traxler, Jennifer Costello, Ken Davenport, Scott Delman, Jamie deRoy, Wendy Federman, Michael Filerman, Jeffrey Finn, Ronald Frankel, Barbara and Buddy Freitag, JK Productions, Patty Ann Lacerte, Alan D. Marks, Judith Resnick, Arlene Scanlan, Terry Schnuck, and Barry Weisbord.