Articles by: Greer Firestone

Greer Firestone is a Delaware native who holds a BA in English from the University of Delaware. An entrepreneurial spirit has prevailed in Greer for years - he's started up and owned businesses and has been running Best of Broadway Productions, a theatrical organization specializing in the production of musicals, since 1985. His love of writing has taken many forms, from historical novel to stage plays and musicals. His popular column, Aisle Say, is also published in the Weekly Arts Column of the Community News. Firestone is currently a partner in The Legacy Video, a project which takes clients chronologically through their life's journey. The end product is a DVD for the client and their children....ONLY them. More info on Mr. Firestone can be found at bestofbroadwayproductions.com and TheLegacyVideo.com.

Producing Director Chris Alberts is a savvy arbiter of talent. When he requires a more classic Broadway musical feel, he calls choreographer Sonny Leo. If the genre is more over the top or down and dirty hell-bent, unrelenting rock n’ roll, it’s Dann Dunn. I referred to Aisle Say’s notes [...]

Dear sister Liz and I introduced ourselves to our table mates. My first question is always… “Have you been to Candlelight before?” In three years of attending opening weekends we’ve sat with only one couple who were returning vets. A promising sign. The couple was from Downingtown. That’s a hike. [...]

THE LIFE, a rarely performed musical by Tony Award winning composer Cy Coleman, makes its Delaware premiere at The Wilmington Drama League. The production is a gritty portrayal of pimps, prostitutes and the motley and unsavory crew of lowlifes in the big city. The subject matter is not dissimilar to [...]

If there is one ‘given’ in life, it is that love changes everything. It is also the title of one of the most beautiful and haunting tunes ever written by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and the underlying theme of ASPECTS OF LOVE, opening The Walnut Street Theatre’s 203rd season. The [...]

Over the past 2 seasons New Candlelight Theatre had been in a groove like the Phillies pitching staff. Their Doc Halladay was “Cats” and “Footloose”; Cliff Lee was “Oklahoma” and “Joseph” and Cole Hamels was “Little Shop” and “Evita”. ANNIE was a minor league choice. True, the tunes ‘Tomorrow’ and [...]

If there is a trophy for getting the max out of the most minimal of resources, (drum roll, please) the award goes to City Theatre Co. The stage is shoehorned in a tiny black box theater in Opera Delaware’s riverfront studios, seating cannot be more than 100 and whatever budget [...]

In the Americanized stage version adapted from the British film of the same name, 6 unemployed Buffalo steel workers, low on both cash and prospects, decide to present a strip act at a local club after seeing their wives’ enthusiasm for a touring company of Chippendales. One of them, Jerry, [...]

John Merrick was an English man in the late 1800′s with severe deformities who was exhibited as a human curiosity. He began to develop abnormally during the first few years of his life. His skin appeared thick and lumpy, he developed an enlargement of his lips, and a bony lump [...]

Noel Coward is one of the finest exemplars of the axiom, “With words we rule men”. There are so many of Aisle Say’s own personal enemies out there – some even reading this column – about whom I could say “You’ll never die….(unfortunately) you’re not the dying sort.” There is [...]

Poetry-wise, I’ll say Aisle Say is strictly a simple iambic pentameter type of fellow; “listening to the loons croon under the moon in June”, that type of thing. Pick up a book of poetry? There are reruns of ‘Jersey Shore’ to titillate my senses, thank you very much.  T.S. Eliot [...]

The UD REP Ensemble stages Tennessee Williams’ THE GLASS MENAGERIE in a set resembling a shadow box. The personalities of the characters cast shadows over one another as well. The themes are heavy: failures of capitalism, failures of the family structure and broken promises by fathers and sons. It is [...]

In the early weeks of January, Aisle Say has little to do but thirst for the second part of the theatre season.  His idle mind causes him to ruminate on a veritable devils’ playground of national issues. My editor may arch her eyebrow over this diversion below, but I suggest [...]

There are few First Staters who have on their theatrical resume being part of the opening night audience of Delaware Theatre Company 32 years ago. Aisle Say was there. The venue was a converted firehouse. The visionary producer/director was Cleveland Morris. Within a short period Morris had convinced various influential [...]

“O Christine O, O Christine O” ( to the tune of “O Christmas Tree”) O Christine O, O Christine O! Our state you so embarrass O Christine O! O Christine O! Republicans you so harass Your only job is candidate Your resume is pure bull…&*% O Christine O, O Christine [...]

Dear Tom Carper, Chris Coons (the luckiest politician in DE), John Carney, Jack Markell, Beau Biden (the UNluckiest politician in DE), UD Pres Patrick Harker and Vance Funk, Mayor of Funkytown: (In one of the hundreds of jobs Aisle Say has had over his career, one was a news picker [...]

Quotes Dr. Seuss, “So the writer who breeds more than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” Therefore, says I, …“the words I pen in my column Aisle Say… will be nifty and utmost thrifty. In fact, I’ll cut by fifty-fifty!” In this first ever production [...]

Aisle Say fervently believes The Beatles had more to do with the dissembling of the Berlin Wall than Ronald Reagan. The stone monolith demarcating Berlin was not high enough to block radio waves emanating from The West. Communist  kids were just like the rest of us kids back then; “All [...]

CHICAGO is the grandest community theatre production Aisle Say has witnessed in the past five years. Jody Anderson is unequivocally the most talented choreographer in the state. Anderson has taken a coterie of dedicated amateur hoofers and molded them into a razzling dazzling unit that pays homage to the singular [...]

Man’s love of his four footed pooch knows no boundaries, at least in the mind of renown playwright A. R. Gurney. Greg (Kurt Zischke) and wife Kate (Hollis McCarthy) are empty nesters. Greg is suffering through an insufferable mid-life crisis. He encounters a stray dog Sylvia (Maggie Lakis) in the [...]

“Those who can’t do”, cries Jen Childs, “mock!” As a child Jen played the flute, but she always dreamed of ‘the dance’. Her female cousins were very good dancers, both being long, limber and lithe. Jen was tres short and a bit wide around the buttocks. Poor Jen’s physical characteristics [...]