GALVESTON, TX – Although best known for her Academy Award-winning songs "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno, Maureen McGovern has considerable musical theater credits. She debuted as Mable in the Joseph Papp revival of The Pirates of Penzance, garnering raves from none other than The New York Times' Frank Rich. She played Raul Julia's wife Luisa Contini in Nine. She starred opposite Sting in the John Dexter production of The Threepenny Opera. And she toured in South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Guys & Dolls, and I Do! I Do!.
She also was featured with Larry Kert and Jack Gilford in the concert revivals of Of Thee I Sing and Let 'Em Eat Cake, which were performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Kennedy Center and recorded by CBS Masterworks. Among her hit pop, jazz, and gospel albums is Naughty Baby, a live, in-studio concert of Gershwin standards and obscurities. She sang Gershwin praises on the PBS/BBC Emmy Award-winning special, Celebrating Gershwin. And she's also taken part in the centennial celebrations of Irving Berlin and Oscar Hammerstein.
But on May 2 at the Grand 1894 Opera House, where she has played before to SRO, McGovern turns her attention to the silver screen. The vocal stylist performs a show entitled "My Reel Romance with the Movies." Her justification spans more than a couple Oscars. She has also sung "Can You Read My Mind," John Williams and Leslie Bricusse's love theme fromSuperman. Her most recent recording is The Music Never Ends: The Lyrics of Alan & Marilyn Bergman, a movie songwriting team. And McGovern was none other than the singing nun in Airplane!.
Maureen McGovern, My Reel Romance with the Movies, plays May 2 at the Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston. For tickets, $14.50 - $46.50, call (800) 821-1894
By Peter Szatmary
Texas Correspondent