Emmy Award-winning comedienne Vicki Lawrence brings her wildly popular national touring revue to the historic Lerner Theatre in Downtown Elkhart on the evening of Saturday, April 6.

Lawrence is among the most beloved television personalities of her generation. Plucked out of total obscurity as a high school senior, she went on to become part of the now-legendary cast of the “Carol Burnett Show,” which she fondly refers to as the “Harvard School of Comedy.”

In the show’s seventh season, and hundreds of hilarious sketches later, at the ripe old age of 24, Lawrence created her most endearing character to date:  Thelma Harper, or “Mama” as she is better known to her fans.

After the Burnett Show, Lawrence went on to star in “Mama’s Family,” which consistently topped the ratings for its entire six-year run of original shows. “Mama” has attained cult status among her legions of loyal television viewers, who still enjoy her in reruns twice daily throughout most of the country.

For several years now, “Carol Burnett Show” alumni, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway have been touring as a comedy act in casinos and performing arts centers and doing skits from the Burnett show to rave reviews. In addition, Lawrence and Conway were recently coupled as parents on CBS-TV’s “Yes Dear,” where their popularity garnered that sitcom its highest ratings to date.

The unprecedented ratings for the “Carol Burnett Showstopper Special,” which recently delighted more than 50 million viewers, convinced Lawrence that the time is right to take Mama out of the closet, dust off her sensible shoes, and hit the road with her new touring production, Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two-Woman Show.

Lawrence will take the stage first. “My new show will not be a retrospective,” she explains. “We are designing a show that is a mixture of stand-up comedy, music, and my observations about real life.”  The multi-talented entertainer is mostly known for her acting and comedic talents, but Baby Boomers may remember she also earned a gold record for the 1973 hit, “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.”

Lawrence also became one of the few successful female game show hosts when she took over the daytime version of “‘Win, Lose or Draw.” She further polished her hosting skills on her own daytime talk show, “Vicki!” from 1992-1994, becoming the only talk show host since Oprah to be nominated for an Emmy in her freshman year.

On stage, Lawrence has appeared in numerous productions, including Send Me No Flowers, No, No Nanette, Hello Dolly, Annie Get Your Gun, and, live from the Grand Ole Opry, Nunsense 3: The Jamboree, which aired on TNN.  Her autobiography, “Vicki! The True Life Adventures of Miss Fireball,” was published in 1995 by Simon and Schuster.

The entertainer also travels all over the country speaking to charity groups about her life and career, women’s health, and being a woman in a man’s world.  Her efforts to protect women’s rights were recognized in 1988 when she was the first woman to be honored as “Person of the Year” by the Coalition of Labor Union Women. Her speaking engagements have given her the opportunity to fine-tune much of her comedy.

“I think people will get a kick out of the things Mama has an opinion about. We’re creating new material with a more modern and cutting edge. Where Mama is concerned, expect the unexpected. There’s really nothing she can’t do,” she says.

Lawrence was born in Inglewood, Calif., where she excelled in dancing and singing, was a cheerleader, and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her graduating class. From 1965 to 1967, she sang with the Young Americans musical group and also appeared in the feature film The Young Americans which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

And here’s how the Carol Burnett connection came about: During her senior year of high school, Lawrence sent Burnett a letter which included a local newspaper article mentioning their resemblance. She invited Burnett to the local fire department’s “Miss Fireball Contest” in which she was performing. Burnett, looking for an actress to play her kid sister on her new variety series, contacted Lawrence and made arrangements to come to attend. The rest is television history.

“The Carol Burnett Show” premiered in the fall of 1967, the same year Lawrence entered UCLA to study Theater Arts. She spent 11 years with Carol, earning one Emmy Award and five Emmy nominations.

The Lerner Theatre presents Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two-Woman Show one night only, Saturday, April 6.  Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the show starting at 7:30 p.m. Reserved seating ticket pricing begins at $29.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 1.

Call The Lerner at 800-294-8223 or visit the box office in person at 410 S. Main St. in downtown Elkhart, or purchase tickets online by visiting thelerner.com.