A slew of classic characters from the pens of Shakespeare, Coward and Wilson and more will tread the boards of the Red Bank stage this season. 

By TOM CHESEK

“I feel like I’m having a dream,” the playwright and performance artist Lisa Kron said as she faced a capacity crowd at Two River Theater Monday night.

“In high school, we, the theater people, were like the outcasts,” she said. “This is the pep rally we never had.”

The occasion for the spirited assembly was the annual new-season announcement  by Two River Theater Company — one of the most highly anticipated such events in New Jersey stage circles, and one presided over by John Dias, now in his second season as TRTC’s artistic director.

As introduced by the nationally renowned producer and some celebrated associates, the 2012-2013 schedule builds upon the successful template established in the current 2011-2012 season — a season that climaxes with the production of Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s My Wonderful Day, going up in previews on May 15.

Utilizing both the mainstage Rechnitz auditorium and the “black box” Marion Huber space at TRTC’s branded Bridge Avenue arts center, the new slate of eight shows mixes classics of the English language with new American voices; intimate solos with exquisite ensembles, and new faces with a whole lot of returning favorites — with words from the likes of Noel Coward, August Wilson and a guy by the name of Shakespeare.

Veterans of Broadway and the Two River Theater, Michael Cumpsty and Chuck Cooper return to the Red Bank stage in 2013.

Joining Dias on stage were a couple of people new to Two River — Kron (whose Broadway production Well was developed with Dias and director Leigh Silverman), and composer-bandleader Ethan Lipton — as well as a pair of Tony-lauded talents who should be familiar not just to Broadway habitues, but to regular observers of the Red Bank scene.

Presently appearing in End of the Rainbow on Broadway (a show for which he’s received a Tony nomination as Best Featured Actor), Michael Cumpsty previewed his involvement with next year’s Present Laughter as a project that “will bring me back to Red Bank, which is where I want to be. I fell in love with this theater, and with the family at the theater.”

An Obie winner for Hamlet and, with Dias, a resident of Middletown, Cumpsty (who starred for TRTC in 2011′s Much Ado About Nothing, and shared the stage with Alec Baldwin for a fundraiser last November) got laughs for suggesting that his role in the Coward comedy — “an aging matinee idol, who throws everyone around him into a vortex of neurosis” — was brought to him as being “kind of like (my) life.”

Making a big splash with Monday night’s audience was Chuck Cooper, the actor and singer who starred this year in both the “chamber musical” In This House and the Red Bank run of August Wilson’s Jitney. The winner of the 1997 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (as Memphis, in The Life) will be portraying a different character by the name of Memphis, when he reunites with noted director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the words of August Wilson for Two Trains Running. Referring to the late African American playwright as “the American Bard” — and calling up the concept of the “blood memory” that unites people of diverse backgrounds — the actor observed that “just like Shakespeare, it takes about a minute to get Wilson’s poetry. You lean into it and you get it. Come to this play and you will remember.”

A high point of the evening was Cooper’s performance of a song from next season’s “family show” presentation, A Wind in the Willows Christmas. The “Americanized” adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s beloved animal characters was composed by the In This House songwriting partnership of Mike Reid and Sarah Schlesinger, although  there are, unfortunately, no plans to suit up Cooper as Mr. Toad when the show makes its bow in December.

The 2012-2013 season, for which subscriptions will soon be made available, is as follows:

TOP DOG/ UNDERDOG (September 8-30, 2012). In 2002, Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for this tale of two brothers, a game of Three Card Monte, and the shared past that can’t be escaped. On the tenth anniversary of this theatrical milestone, Dias and TRTC managing director Michael Hurst return to the play that they helped develop in its premiere at NYC’s Public Theater, with the playwright herself as director.

NO PLACE TO GO (October 6 – November 4, 2012). The quirky, retro-rocketing music of Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra is front and center for this “irreverent, deeply compassionate musical ode to America’s work force,” a lament for a longtime employee whose company has announced that it’s moving to another planet. TRTC Associate Artist Leigh Silverman (who directed Lisa Kron in Well) takes the helm for this premiere inside the Marion Huber Theater.

HENRY V (October 20 – November 11, 2012). William Shakespeare’s supercharged history of a gung-ho young king and the costs of living in a perpetual state of war — the play that gave us the rousing exhortation “Once more unto the breach” — is staged by Michael Sexton of The Shakespeare Society, with a cast featuring “some of New York’s most accomplished young Shakespearean actors.”

A WIND IN THE WILLOWS CHRISTMAS (December 8-30, 2012). In TRTC’s annual holiday presentation for family audiences, Grammy winning Nashville songsmith and recording artist (plus ex-NFL defensive tackle) Mike Reid reteams with Sarah Schlesinger for a new take on the adventures of Mr. Toad, Mr. Badger, Mole and company, while director Amanda Dehnert makes a long-awaited Red Bank debut.

PRESENT LAUGHTER (February 16 – March 10, 2013). Two River Theater Company visits the works of Noel Coward for the third time (following Blithe Spirit and Private Lives) with this witty and sophisticated “valentine to the theater,” in which Cumpsty stars as the debonair leading man Gary Essendine. A director will be announced later this year.

THE ELECTRIC BABY (April 6 – May 5, 2013). For their next world premiere project inside the Marion Huber space, the TRTC team welcomes playwright Stephanie Zadravec for this adult drama about the way we form families — a story in which “a group of lost souls are brought together by accident, and form unlikely connections that will change all of their lives.” May Adrales (In This House) directs.

2.5 MINUTE RIDE (April 20 – May 12, 2013). Performing this monologue piece for the first time in about ten years, author and storyteller Lisa Kron spins a moving and funny autobiographical story that centers on her relationship with her Holocaust survivor father — an Obie-nominated whirlwind tour that careens from concentration camp to amusement park rollercoaster ride. Mark Brokaw (Broadway’s The Lyons) directs.

August Wilson’s TWO TRAINS RUNNING (June 1-23, 2013). Continuing their exploration of Wilson’s epic “Pittsburgh Cycle” that began with this season’s Jitney (and bringing back Chuck Cooper as well as Tony winning actor, director and “first generation Wilsonian” Ruben Santiago-Hudson), TRTC advances into Summer’s heat with this ensemble drama set in the riot-scarred urban landscape of the 1960s; a crucial component of a project that Dias calls “one of the greatest chronicles of a people and a time…one of the greatest works of art ever.”

Take it here for individual tickets to the upcoming production of My Wonderful Day, as well as an “Intimate Evening With…” series of star-quality music concerts at Two River Theater. Check in for updates on other summertime events at Bridge Ave, including the second annual Crossing Borders festival, Joe Muccioli’s Summer Jazz Series and the BOLERO Red Bank dance project — about all of which more to come in the paperless pages of redbankgreen.

As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

Like the past two autumn Oysterfests, Red Bank Flavour’s new International Flavour Fest on Sunday will bulge at the belt line of the White Street parking lot. (Click to enlarge)

It’s panning out to be a busy spring for Red Bank Flavour.

The promotional partnership of borough-based bistros, bars, boites, bakeries, breakfast nooks, banquet halls and better take-out vendors heralded the turn of the season with the return of the Dine Downtown campaign in March. Then in April, the culinary alliance presented a special Broadway in Red Bank showcase that reinforced the notion of the town as dinner-and-show destination.

On Sunday, the Flavour pack joins with Red Bank RiverCenter and a host of local and corporate sponsors for an event with a broader, even global, reach: the first annual Red Bank International Flavour Festival.

Dublin native Steve Reilly and Shore reggae masters Random Test help lend a global vibe to the Red Bank International Flavour Fest, this Sunday afternoon on White Street. 

Presented in the White Street municipal parking lot (scene of September’s Guinness Oysterfests) from noon to 7pm, the rain-or-shine shindig is pitched as “an international culinary experience” that also boasts “international beer and wine,” plus family-friendly activities and a full menu of live music on two stages.

Some 30 of Red Bank’s most proactive purveyors of fine foodstuffs will be offering attendees samples of their wares, as “culinary cultural attaches” for the likes of France (Bienvenue), Ireland (The Dublin House), China (Temple Gourmet), Thailand (Siam Garden), Mexico (SurfTaco), ever-eclectic America (Dish) and points well below sea level. There’s also the expansive international vision of Gary the Soupmeister and Readies, plus gourmet pizza (with other Italian favorites) and the kind of sweet-tooth diplomacy that recognizes no national borders. A full listing of participating vendors (with website links) can be found here.

In a further flavourful twist, the featured entertainment also carries with it an World vibe, with an International Stage showcasing reggae partystarters Random Test, Dublin-born rocker Steve Reilly, Latin/ Salsa showstoppers from The Funktion, and a round-the-world performance by the students of Red Bank’s Kathryn Barnett School of Dance. An All-American stage features local favorites Quincy Mumford and Kirk & The Jirks, as well as Bon Jovi-likes Runaway (take it here for a detailed music schedule and links).

Admission to the Red Bank International Flavour Festival is $5.00 for adults (kids 12 and under free), with proceeds benefitting Red Bank RiverCenter and the Red Bank Regional Buccaneer Athletic Foundation.

The Flavour keeps on lasting, all this spring and throughout the summer, as the grassroots alliance plots the return of the monthly Red Bank Food and Wine Walk promotions, the first of which pounds the pavements on Sunday, May 20 — and about which more to come in the paperless pages of redbankgreen.

Rehearsing for this week’s Spring Dance Concerts at Red Bank Regional, VPA dance majors include (front row, left to right) Phoenicia Butler, Jessica Adderly, Dillion Jackson, plus (back row, left to right) Kendall Van Winkle, Bella Caputi and  Samantha Lore. 

When the Visual and Performing Arts program at Red Bank Regional High School puts on a show, it’s like the Big Game.

Beginning Thursday night and carrying over into the middle of the coming week, the students of the VPA –majors in dance, music and visual arts from all over the Shore area — will take center stage in a series of showcase events, starting with a pair of Spring Dance Concert performances and continuing with the first fully staged opera production in the school’s history.

Katherine Robinson (Shrewsbury) looks on as Evangeline Athanasiou (Red Bank) confronts Patrick Martini (Union Beach) in DIDO AND AENEAS, one of two full one-act operas to be presented next week at Red Bank Regional. (Click to enlarge)

Some 42 dance majors — including six seniors performing together for the last time — take to the boards of the RBR Theatre this Thursday at 7 pm, and again on Saturday at 2 pm, for a recital that combines the work of special guest choreographers with the choreography of the student dancers themselves.

Offering up 30 numbers that range from jazz to hip hop and other contemporary styles, the Spring Dance Concert program features the input of  Say Dance Collective founder Gabrielle Barnett, as well as several VPA dance major alumni (Jamie Baptist, Gwen Baum, Jessica Berube, Kali Drake, Anthony Tiedeman) who’ve gone on to pursue dance and dance education careers.

Berube, who’s served as a student teacher during the 2011-2012 school year at RBR, contributed an original piece entitled Off I Go, which will be realized onstage by the six senior dancers — among them Red Bank’s Phoenicia Butler, who choreographed three of the segments  in the spring show (and who will be studying toward a career in dance education at the University of North Carolina).

Also performing in Off I Go will be three students from Little Silver — Kristin Balve, Dillon Jackson and Kendall Van Winkle — as well as Alexis Hines (Union Beach) and Colleen Strazdas (Neptune City).

RBR faculty member Kristopher Zook says he was looking for “something new” to stretch the abilities of his vocal students — and on the evenings of May 1 and 2, the RBR stage offers something unique to local audiences: a night at the opera.

Featured are a pair of works which, although they were written hundreds of years apart from each other, have a couple of things in common. Both are one-acts of roughly an hour in length, and both are in English.

Written in 1946, The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti (best known for Amahl and the Night Visitors) will be followed by Dido and Aeneas, a “tragic love story” (written in 1689 by Henry Purcell) that has the distinction of being the first opera composed in the English language. The operas will be presented at 7 pm on Tuesday, May 1, and again at 7 pm on Wednesday, May 2.

Zook, who will be directing both operas, called the production “an ambitious project for high school singers, and for some the first opera they have ever attempted, but our talented students are up to the task.”

Starring as Dido is Evangeline Athanasiou of Red Bank, who as winner of the New Jersey Governor School Opera honor is ranked as the top operatic vocal artist in Garden State high schools. Athanasiou, who plans to continue her vocal studies at the Boston Conservatory of Music, will share the stage with Patrick Martini of Union Beach as Aeneas. Shurmila Dhar (Little Silver) and Katharine Robinson (Shrewsbury) are also in the cast for Wednesday’s performance.

Appearing in The Medium on Tuesday are Gabriella Concepcion (Hazlet), Christopher Dubrow (Shrewsbury), Vincent Martini (Union Beach), Erin Murphy (Millstone), Lauren Staub (Avon) — and Little Silver’s Madelyn Monaghan, currently starring as Dorothy in the Phoenix Productions staging of The Wizard of Oz.

Tickets for either performance of A Night at the Opera, or either of the Spring Dance Concerts, are priced at $10 for adults ($5 for students or senior citizens) and may be purchased at the door, or reserved in advance by calling (732) 842-8000, ext. 227.

The vocal students will return to the RBR Theatre stage on Thursday, May 24 for a one-time choral concert entitled Comedy and Tragedy — a program that juxtaposes John Rutter’s sober “Requiem” with the comic cantata “Knock Knock” by the enigmatic “P.D.Q. Bach” (as channeled by the madly musical Professor Peter Schickele).

The magazine’s ranking is based on cultural offerings in towns of 25,000 or fewer residents.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Smithsonian Magazine calls Red Bank the third-best small town in America in its May issue.

On a list of 20 small towns towns rich in culture, the town came in behind only Great Barrington, Massachusetts and Taos, New Mexico, the magazine reported.

That gives Red Bank bragging rights over places like Princeton (number 12) and Key West, Florida (16) –not to mention the thousands that didn’t make the list.

Here’s the magazine’s entry on Red Bank, by reporter Susan Spano:

William Count Basie grew up and got his musical chops on Mechanic Street in Red Bank. In the early 1920s he moved to Harlem and the rest is jazz history, to the tune of the “One O’Clock Jump.” His hometown on the south bank of the Navesink River about 25 miles south of Manhattan went through some lean, mean times after that, but has since made an astonishing cultural and economic comeback, linchpinned by the refurbishment of the 1926 Carlton Theater, now the Count Basie performing arts center, a venue for ballet to rock to Willie Nelson. Cafés, galleries, clubs and shops followed, along with farmers markets and street fairs, attracting people from well-heeled Monmouth County and the Jersey Shore. Town folk (pop. 12,200) went to work on neglected old homes with good bones, the landmark Victorian train depot was restored and the silver was polished at the Molly Pitcher Inn, named for a Revolutionary War heroine who is said to have brought water to thirsty soldiers serving under George Washington during the Battle of Monmouth County. The Navesink got a spiffy waterfront park, the setting for jazz concerts in the summer and iceboating when the river freezes; string quartets and youth choruses perform at the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, while the Two River Theater Company stages new plays and musicals. It all adds up to a model for small-town renewal.

And here’s its explainer on the methodology:

To help create our list, we asked the geographic information systems company Esri to search its data bases for high concentrations of museums, historic sites, botanic gardens, resident orchestras, art galleries and other cultural assets common to big cities. But we focused on towns with populations less than 25,000, so travelers could experience what might be called enlightened good times in an unhurried, charming setting. We also tried to select towns ranging across the lower 48.

Nancy Adams, who heads up the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, tells redbankgreen she was “pleased, but not surprised” to find the town rated so highly, in part because the magazine had previously singled out Red Bank seven or eight years ago, “so I knew we were on their radar.”

And because she doesn’t live in town, the Maplewood resident said she is frequently exposed to the outsider’s view of Red Bank “as a great place to have dinner or see a show or just hang out. But when you’re here all the time, you may not get that.”

Adams said she expects to begin working the designation into marketing materials for the special improvement district she oversees.

Dan Mancuso, a 22-year borough resident and real estate broker who serves on the planning board, said he’s not surprised by the ranking, given the town’s shopping, dining and entertainment offerings. “I easily see myself being a Red Bank resident for the rest of my life,” he said.

Here’s the full list:

1. Great Barrington, Massachusetts

2. Taos, New Mexico

3. RED BANK

4. Mill Valley, California

5. Gig Harbor, Washington

6. Durango, Colorado

7. Butler, Pennsylvania

8. Marfa, Texas

9. Naples, Florida

10. Staunton, West Virginia

11. Brattleboro, Vermont

12. Princeton, New Jersey

13. Brunswick, Maine

14. Siloam Springs, Arkansas

15. Menomonie, Wisconsin

16. Key West, Florida

17. Laguna Beach, California

18. Ashland, Oregon

19. Beckley City, West Virginia

20. Oxford, Mississippi

Jazz scholar/ WBGO disc jockey Gary Walker and guitarist Vic Juris are among the special guests TALKIN’ JAZZ with Joe Muccioli, in the series that returns to the Count Basie’s Carlton Lounge for three Mondays beginning tonight. 

Start Joe Muccioli to talking and he’ll tell you that “Jazz…grew up with America. It symbolizes American democracy.”

“You put several people into a place, a situation, and you honor all of their abilities, but at the same time you have rules, an underlying structure…a constitution,” he says.

A Red Bank resident and the artistic director of the borough-based nonprofit  Jazz Arts Project, the man they call “Mooche” has done a lot of talking, studying, teaching and listening on the topic of jazz — and he’s walked the walk as well, having traveled the world conducting, arranging and working with everyone from Joe Piscopo to the London Philharmonic.

Here in the borough that birthed William “Count” Basie, we know Muccioli as the maestro behind the annual Sinatra Birthday Bash events at the  Count Basie Theatre; as the co-founder of the Jazz Arts Academy program; as the host of the way-cool Summer Jazz series at Two River Theater — and as leader of the Red Bank Jazz Orchestra, the 17-piece organization that issued its maiden recording Strike Up the Band in 2011.

Author and photographer Tad Hershorn (left) joins Joe “Mooche” for a tribute to the late impresario Norman Granz (right) on Monday, April 23.

Add to that the fact that each and every April — a little bend in the calendar they call National Jazz Appreciation Month — Mooche hauls out his formidable “little black book” of Who’s Who contacts, commandeers the Basie Theatre building’s street-level Carlton Lounge, and offers music lovers access to a treasure trove of history, performance, sight, sound and scintillating conversation that could only be called Talkin’ Jazz. It’s a sophisticated series so cool that you’d be tempted to tell them “Joe sent me” at the door, were it not for the fact that it’s entirely free of charge and open to the public. It’s also a Monday evening affair that returns tonight, April 16, with a visit from one of the New York metro area’s most sought-after authorities on all things jazz.

As the “morning man” on Newark-based public radio station WBGO Jazz 88.3FM, Gary Walker has spent some 25 years doing something that theoretically goes against the grain of the nocturnally-spawned music called jazz — sending thousands of jazz aficionados blinking into the freshly risen sun with a dose of “America’s classical music” to keynote the day. The award winning broadcaster has himself met and interviewed everyone who’s anyone in jazz circles, and he joins Muccioli in the Carlton Lounge at 7pm to share the stories and the skinny on the greatest musicians of the millennium-spanning era.

On April 23, the topic will be Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice — and Mooche’s guest will be Tad Hershorn, music historian, photographer and author of an acclaimed new biography of Granz, the “iconoclastic, independent, immensely influential, often thoroughly unpleasant” promoter, producer and personal manager who boosted the careers of Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson; founded the awesome Verve record label and started the legendary Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. Hershorn, who interviewed Granz extensively before his subject’s death in 2001, will offer some rare insights on the man who told him, “Any book on my life would start with my basic philosophy of fighting racial prejudice. I loved jazz, and jazz was my way of doing that.”

The Talkin’ Jazz series goes out on a high note the following Monday, April 30, with a whistle-stop by Jersey’s own Vic Juris, a go-to guitar ace and a “musical conversationalist” who’s performed with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme, to Larry Coryell, Lee Konitz and his own quartet. Equally well known as an educator and author of instructional books, the skilled stylist of the six strings is sure to bring along his guitar as he joins Muccioli for a look back at his long and still-evolving career.

Admission to all of the events in the Talkin’ Jazz series is free, but seating is limited — and registration is both recommended, and as easy as taking it right here.

Chart-topping vocalist, stage actress and “Stradivarius Voice” Maureen McGovern begins a three-week stand at the Two River Theater.

By TOM CHESEK 

Any performer who’s been in (and sometimes out of) the game for more than 40 years could be forgiven for treating some of those years like baggage best left at the dock. In the case of Maureen McGovern, however, not only does she bring it with her when she travels — she prefers to Carry It On.

The pop singer and stage actress, who hit the ground running in 1973 with the Number One hit “The Morning After,” will be unpacking her bags for an extended stay in Red Bank, where she brings her solo show to the stage of Two River Theater beginning with a first preview on Tuesday, April 3.

Clockwise from top left: as the singing nun in AIRPLANE!, as Marmee in Broadway’s LITTLE WOMEN, as a twentysomething singer at the top of the charts, at a Muscular Dystrophy Association gala, as a singer reborn in classic style.

If you remember the “disaster film” craze of the 1970s, you’ll know McGovern as the crisp and clear voice of the aforementioned theme song from The Poseidon Adventure — a record that went gold, topped the Billboards, won an Academy Award and garnered a Best New Artist Grammy nomination for the hitherto unknown singer.

It’s an opening act that she followed up with “We May Never Love Like This Again” from 1974′s The Towering Inferno — and thus was branded the Disaster Theme Queen, a status she spoofed with her memorable role in 1980′s genre-killer Airplane!

There’ve been many more acts to Maureen McGovern’s career, of course — including a Broadway career that began when she was picked to succeed Linda Ronstadt in the smash 1980 production of The Pirates of Penzance. The neophyte actress would go on to co-star with Raul Julia (Nine) and Sting (in The Threepenny Opera) in addition to originating the role of Marmee in the musical adaptation of Little Women.

A run of acclaimed albums interpreting signature tunes from the likes of George Gershwin and Harold Arlen gained Maureen McGovern a couple more Grammy nods, and a landmark salute to Gershwin at Carnegie Hall gained her a whole new career as a sought-after concert performer. It was her most recent release, the 2008 Sixties songbook A Long and Winding Road, that led to the development of Carry It On — a musical exploration (co-authored with director Philip Himberg) that “brings her story to life with extraordinary interpretations of the songs of her generation.” That means everything from a very singerly take on Bob Dylan, to Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Lennon-McCartney, Stephen Sondheim and the title tune, a Civil Rights anthem from folk artist Gil Turner.

Of course, you can’t have multiple acts without a few intermissions — including, in McGovern’s case, a curious stretch in which the financially strapped headliner took a secretarial job under the name Glenda Schwartz. The whole story of Maureen McGovern and her times is all in a night’s work for the singer that composer David Shire dubbed “The Stradivarius Voice” — a story told through words, music and vivd images in Carry It On.

The Drama Desk at redbankgreen spoke to this representative of the Top 100 Irish Americans back in March, as the green cardboard shamrocks of the Muscular Dystrophy Association‘s Shamrocks Against Dystrophy (a campaign that McGovern chaired for many years) bloomed at supermarkets and convenience stores coast to coast.

redbankgreen: So what can we expect to see when CARRY IT ON makes its stand at the Two River Theater? 

I perform it on a minimal set,  with my music director Jeffrey Harris. There are rear projections; archival images of my family, my career — and of the markers in our lives, things like Vietnam, JFK, Martin Luther King, Kent State.

I understand that you touch upon the various aspects of your career over the course of the show, and one of the more interesting little intervals, which you haven’t been shy about mentioning, is that brief interlude when you quit music to work a regular job under an assumed name in California…

I had been pigeonholed as the Disaster Theme Queen; I had two Oscar gold records to my name, and yes, I moved to Marina Del Rey and went back to working as a secretary, for an oral surgeon and then the chairman of a trucking firm. I was able to take off from work every now and then to perform somewhere, to go from Glenda Schwartz back to Maureen McGovern and travel to the south of France or the Philippines. I was very lucky that way, and I was lucky in that I had practical experience in working regular jobs, so I didn’t have to wait tables.

Well, it probably wouldn’t be going out on a limb to guess that you accentuate the positive, as they say. But I do know that it wasn’t the last time that you took a hiatus from being a singer.

When I did Airplane! things started happening for me again, but I still wasn’t making the records that I wanted to make. On my first records, my producer picked the material; the instrumental tracks were usually pre-recorded by the time I came in to cut the vocal. I was told to shut up and sing; be glad you have a record deal…I got to thinking ‘I’m doing what I love, but…when is it going to be my turn?’

So I walked away from music again. I made a choice not to record again until I could do it on my own terms.

But you weren’t out of show business, correct?

I explored theater, cabaret, radio commercials..and I went back to my roots as  folk singer. With Pirates of Penzance, Joe Papp hired me on the spot. I discovered that Broadway people are strange birds, who do eight shows a week and then go off and do a midnight cabaret for fun.

I had fun doing things like Brownstone and the shows on Broadway, and then in 1986 I made the album Another Woman in Love, which I consider to be my first ‘real’ album.

So when you were finally able to release those Great American Songbook type albums, were you of the mindset that it was “your turn” at last, especially given the fact that you had dispensed with the overripe arrangements and let your projects stand or fall on your own voice?  

One of my favorite albums is (the George Gershwin tribute) Naughty Baby, which we recorded live in the studio; just put out some wine and cheese and let the tapes roll. We had members of the Gershwin family present.

Well, that had to add an extra little edge to the proceedings. 

I do take liberties here and there, as so many singers do when they take on the body of work of a composer, so I do get nervous if I know someone like that is in the audience.

I was happy to be doing that sort of music professionally, after having done so many different types of music over the years. When I was in school I sang folk; my ex-husband was a jazz drummer and he got me my first paying gig at Kent State.

As regards the Great American Songbook, are you a “strict constitutionalist,” in that you think we’ve got things pretty well defined as to what belongs under that heading…or do you see it as a living, evolving thing that should encompass the work of songwriters from outside the old Tin Pan Alley scene? 

The songs that really made the biggest impression on me from when I first started singing are the sort of things that remain relevant today…things by Joni Mitchell, who’s a goddess; Jimmy Webb, who’s a national treasure. James Taylor, absolutely. It’s a different kind of song from the Rodgers and Hammerstein style, but there’s such an exquisite craft to the singer-songwriter music that emerged out of the 1960s.

So between pop, folk, Songbook, Gilbert and Sullivan, I got the reputation as something of a ‘schizophrenic’ singer.

You’ve been quoted as saying that music therapists are your heroes; is this something that you elaborate upon in your show? 

In Little Women, Marmee sings a song called ‘Days of Plenty,’ at a point where Jo is despondent over having lost so much in her life — the song says that you go on in your life, in honor of the ones you lost. We had a group of sixth graders attend one of the performances; it turned out that a little girl in the audience had lost her brother, and when I did the song I saw a light bulb go on over her head. That’s the power of music.

There are those who find your first big hit very inspirational as well…a lot of performers who had this one tremendous hit song that forever gets linked to their name, tend to view that song as something of an albatross around their neck as they strive to get noticed for other things. But it sounds like you’ve managed to make peace with that song; to find something new there.

It’s a generic hope song — but you’re always able to find a new context to it!

Carry It On goes up in previews on Tuesday, April 3 (8 pm); official opening night is Saturday, April 7 (that performance is SOLD OUT), and the show continues with a schedule of evening and matinee performances, Wednesdays through Sundays until April 22. Tickets are $37 – $57 (with a new discounted price of $24 for anyone 30 years and younger) and are available by calling the TRTC Box Office at 732.345.1400, or visiting the TRTC website for schedule details and availability (tickets also available for In This House, which continues in the Marion Huber space at Two River Theater through April 8).

For a longer version of this article, check out Tom Chesek’s new blog, Upper WET Side.

By JOHN T. WARD

Dan Laden’s been at the front of the line before when new  Bruce Springsteen records have hit the stores.

But being the first, as he was at Jack’s Music Shoppe Monday night for the market debut of “Wrecking Ball,” isn’t about bragging rights, he tells redbankgreen.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Laden, who as the owner of Garden State Auto Repair in Little Silver has worked on Springsteen’s cars for 15 years. “It’s a matter of respect for Bruce.”

A sense of spiritual indebtedness was one of several forces that fans said compelled them to show up shortly before midnight in 28-degree weather to buy an album that would still be available the next morning.

Dan Laden shows off a poster Jack’s gave customers, along with coffee and doughnuts, at the Springsteen record drop. (Click to enlarge)

“I want to get the Bruce album pretty much before everyone else,” said Diego Allessandro of Old Bridge, who spins records for WMCX at Monmouth University. He also allowed that he’s a “big nerd” who likes being at the forefront of cultural milestones.

But being among other devotees was also part of the draw, he said, when not singing along to the lyrics as ‘Wrecking Ball’ played on the store’s sound system.

“For me, it’s all about community,” Allessandro said. “These are the diehard fans, just like me.”

And Jack’s, fans said, is a shrine of sorts, not only because it is a relic of the age of independent record retailers, but because of its associations with Springsteen. He often shops at the store, and, in April 2001, spent 90 minutes mingling fans at a record-debut event just like this one.

“Who else is going to do this, Sam Goody?” one fan in line asked sarcastically.

“It’s gotta be this one,” said Linda Busichio, who drove up from Wall Township with her 18-year-old daughter and two friends, partly on the hope that Springsteen would show up again. “I wouldn’t want to miss that,” she said.

As of 12:05 a.m., Springsteen had not appeared.