Georgia Engel to Star in TheatreZone's HIGH SPIRITS; Opens 1/7

Broadway star Georgia Engel, last seen in the production of The Drowsy Chaperone as Mrs. Tottendale, will star in the Theatre Zone's production of HIGH SPIRITS in Naples, Florida. The production is a limited engagement, playing January 7th through 17th. High Spirits is a musical adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.

High Spirits is a musical comedy and was nominated for 8 Tony Awards. It is based on Coward's play Blithe Spirit and includes a charming score by Hugh Martin & Timothy Gray. The musical features a fussy, cantankerous novelist named Charles Condomine, who is re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira. Elvira is summoned by a visiting "happy medium", Madame Arcati, played by Georgia Engel of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. As the worldly and un-worldly personalities clash, unlikely twists and turns continue throughout the musical.

Engel first appeared in musical productions with Washington's American Light Opera Company. She moved to New York City in 1969, appearing off Broadway in Lend an Ear, and for a year as Minnie Fay in the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!. A 1971 off Broadway production of The House of Blue Leaves eventually played in Los Angeles, where Engel was seen by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, producer Grant Tinker.

Engel is probably best known as Georgette Franklin Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, on which she appeared from 1972 until the show ended in 1977. The role won her two Emmy nominations. After that series ended, she teamed up with former Mary Tyler Moore Show co-star Betty White for The Betty White Show during its first and only (1977-1978) season. She then co-starred on the short-lived 1980 sitcom Goodtime Girls, as Loretta Smoot. Engel had a recurring role on Coach as Shirley Burleigh and starred as the voice of Love-a-Lot Bear in The Care Bears Movie (1985). She also has been seen in the recurring role of Ezmeralda the good witch on the NBC soap opera Passions.

Engel received consecutive Emmy nominations as outstanding guest actress in a comedy series in 2003, 2004, and 2005 for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond as Robert Barone's mother-in-law, Pat MacDougall.

Engel later returned to her stage roots. In 2006, she appeared on Broadway in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, with Sutton Foster and Edward Hibbert. She created the role of Mrs. Tottendale, which she continued to perform as of early 2007. In September 2007, she reprised the role in Toronto for the North American tour. She recently performed the role at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, an engagement that ended on Sunday, August 17, 2008. In recent years, she has been appearing at The Muny Theater in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri.

Performances for High Spirits take place January 7th through 9th at 8:00pm, January 9th and 10th at 2:00pm, January 13th through 16th at 8:00pm and January 17th at 2:00pm. Tickets for High Spirits range in price from $38 to $43 and may be purchaed online at theatrezone-florida.tix.com. Performances take place at the G&L Theatre at the Community School of Naples.

For more information, visit www.theatrezone-florida.com.

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