Greer Firestone - Page 5

JUDY GARLAND 'World's Greatest Entertainer' is available for licensing to both individual theatres throughout the world OR seeking a production company/investor to mount a tour.

Bono, friend to Troy the protagonist in UD Rep Ensemble's FENCES, comments 'Some people build fences to keep people out, some people build fences to keep people in'.

Who has not seen SOUND OF MUSIC whether on stage or the classic movie and not been enraptured by its story and songs?

The beloved farce LEND ME A TENOR opens May 11 at The Candlelight Theatre with a stellar cast all of whom can launch a laugh line.

While UD Rep Ensemble's general modus operandi is classic plays from the likes of Moliere, Shakespeare and Thornton Wilder, their mission statement includes production of contemporary classics as well. Artistic Director Sandy Robbins is smitten by Theresa Rebeck, a prolific and award-winning American playwright, novelist and television writer.

HONK! Is a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson story of "The Ugly Duckling". It embodies a message of tolerance and bullying…and as Director Bud Martin suggests in his program notes…'the discourse in our country today is full of bullying, name-calling, racism and anti-immigration". (Provoked by our Narcissist in Chief. My words, not Martin's).

Paula and George Wolkind had a dream, realized last year at the baby grand with the first inductees of the Delaware Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. That first show was a rollicking, jitterbugging sellout.

SOMETHING ROTTEN, a musical that national reviewers have exuberantly called 'the funniest show on Broadway", brings its national tour to The Playhouse March 7-10. If your stomach hurt over the antics in THE PRODUCERS, BOOK OF MORMON or SPAMALOT and the much-missed FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, well, gird your loins! This show is for you.

GUYS AND DOLLS, at Candlelight through February 24, opened on Broadway in 1950 and is front and center in the pantheon of American musical theatre. I had forgotten how much I treasure this show.

The timing could not be more perfect to see a production that inspires the soul and uplifts the heart. FINDING NEVERLAND comes to The Playhouse February 7-10. As a country we are numbed by all the divisiveness and rancor. This magical creation will salve the vitriol and hate, if only for a few hours.

The NEW book musical, JUDY GARLAND 'World's Greatest Entertainer' opens at the baby grand in Wilmington on March 22 - March 30 for 6 performances. Written by Delaware native Playwright Greer Firestone, the show takes place in 1961, 2 weeks after Judy's legendary concert at Carnegie Hall which critics termed 'the greatest night in show business history'. This ORIGINAL musical has aspirations past the baby grand. National producers will be invited.

There has been a proliferation of jukebox musicals in the past 2 decades. MAMA MIA far and away heads the list of successes. Using the guilty-pleasure pop catalog of ABBA, playwright Catherine Johnson spun a light-as-air family comedy. Somehow this show makes the songs sound like they were written specifically for the story. It's cumulus-cloud fluffy but also downright irresistible.

For decades, beginning in the 1940's Wilmington's Playhouse, was a stop - a tryout town if you will - with productions whose terminal destination was Broadway. Shows written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe would be staged here to gauge audience approval, tweak, add or delete dialogue or songs, etc

There's a reason that the vast majority of parishioners to musical theatre had not seen SHE LOVES ME prior, including Aisle Say. The show, while billed as charming and seasonal with carolers singing "12 Days of Christmas", has as much gravitas as tweets from Tweeter in Chief

In his liner notes, Artistic Director Sandy Robbins comments that Alan Ackybourne's WOMAN IN MIND (December Bee) was on his short list since the inception of UD Rep ten glorious years back.

As guests enter The Playhouse for the run of CIRQUE HOLIDAZE from November 23-25, they will be among the 50 million+ who have experienced a CIRQUE DREAMS brand performance. (That is not a typo)! Founded 25 years ago this global franchise includes Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy, CD Illumination, CD & Steam, CD Epicurean and CD Unwrapped.

A bonified, old fashioned musical, SHE LOVES ME, opens at Candlelight on Nov 17 through Dec 23. SHE LOVES ME is the perfect way to re-discover your Christmas spirit. Set in a shop in1930s Budapest, it is a warm romantic comedy with an endearing innocence.

Aisle Say's favorite interview was yesterday, with King Arthur (Steve McCoy) of SPAMALOT, opening at The Playhouse on October 25 and running for 4 nights. Mais oui, a kindred spirit, but his career took a slightly different trajectory than mine; a 20-year-old moving to NYC in 1970, attempting to make it on Broadway (and failing miserably).

As Artistic Director Pasha Kambalov was introducing me to his cadre of young professional dancers, he smiled and said 'they could all be your children'. (I have news for you my friend, some could be my grandchildren).

Aisle Say is prescient. He can determine where SANCTIONS, the terse and taut production now at DE Theatre Company, will NOT be staged: U of Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan State and Penn State, to name a few. There are hundreds more.