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Angels we shall see on high in Spring Hill

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSON
Published November 26, 2005

For some people, seeing Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror signals the start of the holiday season.

For me, it's the arrival of Angels on High at the Spring Hill Community Association on Kenlake Avenue in Spring Hill.

Angels on High is an exhibit of angel figures lovingly made by local families, individuals, organizations, clubs and businesses, using 4-by-4 sheets of plywood and lots of creativity and imagination. The angels are suspended in the trees along a lighted path adjacent to the association clubhouse, where the community can come admire and enjoy them.

In the past five years, Angels has grown from a few angels in the trees to eight nights of entertainment, refreshments and more than 50 unusual but still handmade and personalized angels. Last year, more than 5,000 people strolled through the brightly lit paths to the sound of holiday music to see them.

The trail was cleared by a few devoted people in the association, with help from the county and the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative. The trail is covered in mulch, but those who use wheelchairs, walkers or canes can catch a ride on a five-passenger motorized cart supplied by Register Chevrolet.

Even during cold spells, Angels on High has a warm, hometown feeling about it. Volunteers don white angel robes to usher visitors about. Other volunteers sell hot cocoa, coffee and other goodies to raise money for local nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society of Hernando County, the Kiwanis Key Club, Cub Scouts, churches and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

And still other volunteers donate their time and talents to entertain those who come to stroll through the paths where the lighted angels seem to float and fly.

This year's Angels on High is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 10 through 17. The entertainment is from 7 to 7:30 p.m. in the clubhouse.

On Dec. 3 and 4, volunteers will be climbing ladders and trees to suspend the angels in the trees and string thousands of twinkle lights and scores of spotlights to light them up. Work starts at 9 a.m. on Dec. 3 and at noon on Dec. 4.

It's not too late to make an angel or to volunteer to help put them up, get the site ready or, during the event itself, be an usher, direct the hundreds of cars that bring the holiday viewers to the lake or do one of the hundreds of other tasks that make Angels on High possible.

If you want to help, call 666-4746 between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday, Wednesday or Friday or, at other times, call Cookie at 684-0713.

The association calls the display the community's gift to itself, and admission is indeed free. A donation, however, will help the association maintain and expand this wonderful community project.

* * *

Musical fans who fell in love with singer-dancer Meredith Inglesby as Roxie Hart in Chicago and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre can see her again.

Only this time it entails a trip to Broadway in New York.

Ms. Inglesby has landed the role of Babette, the maid, in Beauty and the Beast at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, a historic venue that has been home to revivals of Peter Pan and Hello, Dolly , among other shows.

Ms. Inglesby's latest area appearance was in Disney's On the Record at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in May. Interestingly, one of her fellow On the Record touring company performers, Ashley Brown, landed the lead role of Belle in Broadway's Beauty/Beast just a couple of months before Ms. Inglesby joined the cast on Nov. 9.

Now, two Show Palace alums are in major Broadway productions. The first was Kissy Simmons, who played the narrator in Show Palace's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . She has been Nala in Broadway's The Lion King for a couple of years.

* * *

To no one's surprise, tickets for Broadway diva Carol Channing's show at the Spartan Manor on Jan. 21, The First Eighty Years Are the Hardest , are getting mighty scarce.

So presenter John Timpanelli has persuaded the very charming Ms. Channing to add another show, this one at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19, also at the Spartan Manor.

Tickets are $40 for the show, $50 for the show and reception with Ms. Channing. Call (727) 849-3758 for details.

Incidentally, Ms. Channing's show got warm reviews when it made its debut at Feinstein's at the Regency on Park Avenue in New York in mid October.

[Last modified November 26, 2005, 02:30:29]