Greer Firestone - Page 10

Such a serendipitous time to stage SOUTH PACIFIC at Candlelight; 1949 legendary musical theatre consciously plotted to speak to racial animosity; brown skins vs white skins. And now, 78 years later, we reside in a country riven by a racist president.

The Grand Management went in a divergent (albeit more creative and all encompassing path) to preview their entire 2019-2020 season. Last Wednesday they invited the public to Copeland Hall to present tapas-style tidbits of The Grand, The Playhouse, First State Ballet, DE Symphony, Opera Delaware, The Rock Orchestra and City-Theatre; all resident performers at our esteemed Performing Arts Center of Delaware at 818 Market St. and elsewhere.

LEGALLY BLONDE: The Musical is absolute escapism but staged at The Walnut it is legally astonishing in its tight direction, supremely talented actors and technical aspects. There can be no prosecutorial dissent on this!

From a short 1976 New York Magazine article by Brit ex pat Nik Cohn (which he later admitted was fictional) was spawned a block buster film that made John Travolta a household name.

I understand why actors have a passive-aggressive relationship with critics. Over 30+ years of reviewing regional theatre, some don't make eye contact with me when they feel I have slighted or criticized them unfairly in a previous review…or worse yet…never mentioned them!

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.