UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 31, Page 3
May 9, 1996
On stage; Alumnus major force behind annual Broadway revue

     For Greer Firestone, Delaware '69, all the world's a stage, and
the more ways he can find to incorporate theatre into life, the
better.
     Well-respected in Delaware's theatre community, Firestone is
perhaps best known as the energizer behind Delaware's Best of
Broadway, an annual revue presented from 1985 to 1988 that featured
the creme de la creme of Delaware's singers and dancers, performing
the best loved songs from the Great White Way.
      Funds generated from Best of Broadway were funneled into such
local charities as the News Journal's Needy Family Fund, Emmanuel
Dining Room and the Ronald McDonald House. When time commitments to
the show became too costly to sustain, the annual event folded until a
crisis that touched the hearts of many Delaware performing artists
caused its resurrection.
     When the late Susan Webster, a much-loved actress in community
theatre for 25 years, became ill with terminal cancer, Firestone and
others were hit hard. Not only were they faced with watching a close
friend die, they also realized that many who devote their lives to the
arts do so without the benefit of medical coverage.
     To help raise both Webster's spirits and much needed funds,
Firestone and his partners Ted Meyermann and Charles Lee decided to
reprise the show as a special tribute to Webster.
     The playbill was full of touching advertisements from people and
businesses whose lives Webster had touched, and the show closed with a
moving rendition of Les Miserables' "One Day More," dedicated to
Webster. After three packed performances, the show netted $13,000-all
donated to Webster. Weakened but ambulatory, Webster attended every
night. She lived a little more than six months after the June 1995
production.
     Buoyed by their success and prompted by the support of two local
entrepreneurs in the audience, Firestone and his partners agreed to
once again make the Best of Broadway an annual event, with funds going
to a new organization-one dedicated to helping all Delaware artists
(both performing and visual) in the event of a medical emergency.
     Known as The Best of Broadway Artists' Fund, the organization
will give all monies raised to the Medical Center of Delaware to be
held in escrow and disbursed as needed to people who apply for grants.
There will be a cap on the funds available to one person.
     The 1996 event is scheduled from May 16-19 at the Delaware
Theatre Company in Wilmington. Audition standards are exceedingly
high, and Firestone maintains that only the best of the best will be
selected to perform.
     "We've had a string of 13 standing ovations with shows dating
back to 1987. We hope to keep the tradition going," Firestone says.
"Our performers are people who could easily have been professionals,
but they just didn't choose to go that route."
     Firestone says the Best of Broadway aims to "set the standard for
community theatre," but open auditions are held. "It's like going to
an Ivy League school," he says. "If you don't apply, you won't get
in."
     Some people who didn't apply but did get into the first Best of
Broadway include Elise and former congressman and Gov. Pete du Pont
and then Gov. Mike Castle, whom Firestone convinced to appear in an
adapted scene from 1776.
     "My philosophy is that if you don't ask, you don't know what the
answer will be," the optimistic Firestone says. "I'm also a networker.
If I don't know how to get to that person, I know someone who does."
     Firestone's interest in theatre began at the age of 10 when he
appeared as a Japanese boy in a Wilmington Drama League production of
Teahouse of the August Moon. His mother was in the chorus, and his
father portrayed one of the townspeople.
     "Due to the show's length, my mother took me home at
intermission," Firestone recalls. "One night we were in a car
accident. The cop's response to my mother dressed as a geisha girl did
it. I've loved theatre ever since!"
     An athlete at Brandywine High School, Firestone suspended his
theatre interest temporarily, for coaches frowned upon athletes
appearing in shows. At UD, he majored in political science and is best
remembered as one of the founding fathers of the campus radio
station-originally known as WHEN. As the first general manager, he
spoke the first words ever broadcast on the station-its motto-"WHEN is
now and you ain't heard nothing yet!"
     Firestone also worked as the master of ceremonies for many campus
concerts, introducing a range of acts from Iron Butterfly to Gary
Puckett and the Union Gap.
     If he has one regret in life, he says, it may be spending all his
money to attend the Atlantic City Rock Festival and being too broke to
attend another rock festival a week later- Woodstock.
     After graduation, Firestone hitchhiked around Europe, tried his
hand at professional theatre in New York and eventually worked for
that cultural bastion of the '70s-the Earth Shoe store. He went on to
own seven stores in the Washington-Philadelphia area before the Earth
Shoe parent company went bankrupt toward the end of the decade.
     After four years in California, Firestone returned to Delaware
and started his own business-College Bound-a service that provides
financial aid and admission and selection advice to students.
     After counseling students and their families about grade point
averages, SAT results, preferred regions and majors, he provides a
list of possibilities to each client. Other services are available,
such as help with admission essays.
     Yet, Firestone's first love remains theatre. He and his wife, the
former Jeanie Donehower, cared for Webster up until the end this past
December.  By reviving Best of Broadway, he makes sure that his
friend's legacy lives on-right on stage.
                                                          -Beth Thomas