Urinetown The Musical
October 27 – November 5, Baker Theatre Information & Tickets 484-664-3333 or www.muhlenberg.edu/tickets Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance, Muhlenberg CollegeMonday, October 16, 2006 01:59 PM
Urinetown – The Journey from the NY Fringe to Broadway to Campus
“I found ''Urinetown'' audacious and exhilarating, riotously and intelligently arch…
both a homage to and an outlandish spoof of the Brechtian theater of outrage and provocation.” Bruce Weber, 2001 Broadway Review in The New York Times
The Muhlenberg Theatre Association presents its original production of the Off-off, Off and Broadway hit Urinetown, The Musical in the Baker Theatre, Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance of Muhlenberg College from October 27 - November 5, 2006. With an outrageous original book by Greg Kotis, music by Mark Hollmann, and lyrics by both, Urinetown, The Musical has entertained audiences and critics from the New York Fringe Festival in 1999 through the 2002 run of the show on Broadway, and beyond. The Muhlenberg College production is directed by Jim Peck, choreographed by Karen Dearborn, and musically directed by Ken Butler. Costumes are designed by Constance Case; lighting is designed by Curtis Dretsch; the Muhlenberg stage setting is designed by senior Susan Toman; senior Robert J. Wagner is assistant choreographer.
Urinetown is set in a mythical, embattled city devastated by a 20-year drought of epic proportions where fighting for “the privilege to pee free” becomes a cry for revolution. To preserve the failing supply of water, private toilets are outlawed and citizens must pay increasingly higher fees to use public facilities. Everyone is at the mercy of a single monopolizing corporation who controls the public amenities – The Urine Good Company.
This acerbic and endlessly funny musical about the dangers of both power and freedom has a sharp political bite. “As in all good satire, there's a sober point lurking in its heart, in this case amounting to a kind of admonishment of American wastefulness,” says Peck. Composer Mark Hollman also saw immediately that Greg Kotis’s book would rise above its provocative title: “The project had all the elements of a great musical…. It also had the potential for comic social commentary.”
The show that Peck also brands as “goofy” and “apocalyptic” ultimately is also a genuine, original American musical. Peck has invited choreographer Karen Dearborn to bring more dance to the stage than even the Broadway version of the show delivered. “This production shape-shifts in dance as well as music and lyrics,” says the director.
Dearborn describes the sweep of musical styles and genres that are embedded in the musical production numbers in Urinetown as “quotes” from a historical array of choreographers from Fred Astaire to Jerome Robbins and genres from charleston to
Contemporary hip-hop. Influenced by Kurt Weill and Marc Blitzstein as well as Sondheim and Rodgers and Hammerstein, composer Mark Hollmann dishes out a veritable feast of Broadway memories. The ability of Dearborn to show audiences the famous musical allusions is secondary to the ability of Dearborn and Peck together to enhance the story.
“Dance is not often reflective of power on the musical theater stage; but it is in this show,” says Dearborn. As the cry for freedom erupts and the hope of liberation gives the rebels a new sense of power, the socio-political shift is reflected in their newly acquired power to express themselves in dance. Peck describes the energy of this musical as “full throttle” – encouraging his company to take the piece seriously, for all its wit and humor: “Urinetown… is funny, but holds a very dark view about the state of affairs.” He admires the musical’s ability to layer silliness and satire together to mount a significant challenge to our cultural habits of unrestrained consumption in this land of the “free.” In the end, neither the profit-seeking corporate caretaker nor the socially conscious rebel manages to prevent the unavoidable depletion of essential resources for the citizens of this mythical city.
“It is good to get people to see the musical as an artistic form in which it is possible to say challenging and important things about the world,” the director continues. “Urinetown, the Musical accepts the challenges of being an American, even in dire environmental, economic and political situations. This production is an opportunity to share a conversation about freedom as well as about theatre with the campus and the community.”
BOX OFFICE INFORMATION
Opening week performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. The show continues Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $18 Adult, $16 Senior, $12 Youth and $5 Campus.
Call 484-664-3333, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for ticket reservations. Tickets must be purchased at time of reservation. You may purchase tickets online by visiting www.muhlenberg.edu/tickets. For more information about the theatre program at Muhlenberg College, visit: www.muhlenberg.edu/depts/theatre.
THE STORY
“Absurd, allegorical, ridiculous, unpredictable.”
Critics have penned that Urinetown, The Musical is foolish, shameless, absurd, unique, provocative, irreverent, entertaining, hilarious – and extraordinary. Rex Reed asked the question on everyone’s mind – and answered it: “What kind of musical is this? …. A strange, macabre, eccentric, improbable and wildly indescribable entertainment,” he wrote in the New York Observer. “You've never experienced anything quite like it."
Creators Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann have turned a twisted tale of greed, corruption and betrayal into a hysterically funny critique of freedom, love and revolution. The unlikely idea for the show came to Kotis when he was performing in Europe as a member of the Neo-Futurists. Striking out alone on an extended adventure in Paris, he apparently found himself wandering one cold and rainy day debating whether to spend some of his limited remaining funds to use one of the available pay-per-use public toilets. The outrageous notion of a malevolent corporation that not only controlled the public toilets but also outlawed private ones became the kernel of the book for Urinetown, The Musical.
When Kotis shared his idea about the radical politics of peeing with Mark Hollmann, his friend and improvisational collaborator for many years in Chicago storefronts, the first song to emerge was “It’s a Privilege to Pee.” When Greg heard it, he was consumed by laughter. Says Hollmann, “Laughter would become a barometer for us: if I laughed spontaneously at Greg’s writing or he at mine, whatever got us laughing would usually stay in the show.” Never expecting anyone but a few friends to see the results, they unleashed their cocktail of hilarity and doom on the project for the next three years.
“Yes, Urinetown would be absurd, allegorical, ridiculous, unpredictable,” writes Kotis. “But, at the same time, it would present a world long past the point where good intentions could do any good, a future we both fear and anticipate in the world, silently for the most part. And perhaps a musical that had deliberately shed the traditional credentials of a happy ending, or even a decent title, might be exactly the right play to present the thought we had in mind.”
Hollmann remembers the shock of the move uptown: “I will never forget the sound, at the first Broadway preview, of six hundred people laughing...” Critic Bruce Weber of the New York Times had also followed the project’s journey, and concluded, “There simply is no show I've ever seen that gives off such a sense that the creators and performers are always on the same page of an elaborate, high-spirited joke, that they are the proud members of a cabal that knows what it takes to make the world a better place and that they are thrilled to share what they know. “
The story begins like a 1930’s story of the struggling working class versus the wealthy elite. Out of the mass of the poor who suffer the most from this arrangement, an earnest young hero emerges to lead his fellow citizens against the tyrannical regime after his own father is carted off to the mysterious Urinetown as punishment for not paying the fee. Bobby becomes defiant, attracting and intriguing young Hope – the naïve daughter of the corporate boss at the helm of UGC. Given her encouragement to lead with his heart, Bobby dares to ask, "What if the law is wrong?"
As the poor are emboldened to rebel against the powerful corporation, Hope finds herself held hostage and Bobby tries to convince her father that a peaceful settlement is possible. When Bobby is deceived and killed, Hope is rescued and goes on to defeat her father and the corporation.
However, this is not a happy-ending musical. By making the public facilities free and removing the controls on the use of water, everyone’s future survival is put at risk. For all its hilarity, Urinetown, the Musical rewards us with more questions than answers. The mixture of critique and entertainment are intentional. Says Kotis, “We burn too much oil, build too many roads and too many houses, create too much garbage, and as human beings interested in pleasure, convenience, personal freedom, and individual progress, we’re simply incapable of making the changes necessary to save ourselves…. These problems seem so huge, so complete, so fundamental as to be unsolvable, and that was the issue Mark and I ultimately hoped to consider with this play.”
After more than one hundred producers and agents in New York rejected the finished project, the creators decided to produce what Kotis would call “a raw and rebellious production” in the Stanton Street Garage for the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival. Unpredictably, Urinetown became an unadulterated hit among NYC Fringe audiences and critics and was awarded “Over Excellence” for a Musical. The show caught enough people’s attention to send it on to an Obie Award-winning run Off-Broadway run and then to 965 performances in a nearly abandoned theatre on Broadway. Nominated for ten Tony Awards in 2002, Urinetown, The Musical was awarded Best Original Musical Score, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Direction of a Musical. The show also earned the 2002 Outer Circle Critics Award for Best Musical and the 2002 Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Musical.
ARTIST PROFILES
Greg Kotis (Book, Lyrics Co-writer) is a veteran of the Neo-Futurists, creators of the adventurous, smart, interactive theater event, “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” the long-running, ongoing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes. Greg has written hundreds of Neo-Futurist plays, performed for tens of thousands of theater patrons, and traveled with the show to both coasts of the country. His play about fish, toast, and a love stronger and grimmer than death, Jobey and Katherine, enjoyed runs in New York and Chicago in 1997. As a member of Cardiff-Giant, he appeared in countless anarchic improvisations and co-authored six plays including LBJFKKK, Love Me, and Aftertaste! (The Musical).
Mark Hollmann (Music, Lyrics Co-Writer) graduated with a degree in music from the University of Chicago, attended the Making Tuners Workshop at New Tuners Theatre in Chicago and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, and studied advanced composition with William Russo, chairman of the music department at Columbia College in Chicago. He is a former ensemble member of the Cardiff-Giant Theatre Company in Chicago. He played trombone for the Chicago art-rock band Maestro Subgum and the Whole, played piano for the Second City national touring company and Chicago City Limits, and worked as a church organist and choral director.
Jim Peck (Director) is Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance at Muhlenberg College. He is a director and a theatre historian. He has directed over 50 plays and operas at theatres throughout the United States. His premiere production of Naomi Iizuka’s Lizzie Vinyl: A Reconstruction toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. He received the Drama League Director’s Project Award. Recent Muhlenberg productions include Howard Barker’s Scenes from an Execution, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, and David Edgar’s Pentecost. He is the Book Review Editor of Theatre Journal. Dr. Peck holds a B.A. in Religion from Carleton College, an M.F.A. in Theatre Direction from the University of California at San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University.
Karen Dearborn (Choreographer) has choreographed over 70 works in concert, theatre, and musical theatre including national tours of the Tony Award-winning National Theatre of the Deaf and several Equity theatres. She has provided choreography for the MTA productions of Cabaret, On the Town, Wonderful Town, West Side Story, Brigadoon, Oklahoma!, and SMT productions of Carousel, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Guys and Dolls, Man of La Mancha, Boys from Syracuse, Oliver! and Annie Get Your Gun. She is currently Professor and Director of the Dance Program at Muhlenberg College.
Constance Case (Costume Designer) has designed the MTA productions The Beggar’s Opera, Pentecost, Brigadoon, Dido and Aeneas, The Country Wife, The Mikado, and Top Girls, and the SMT productions Once Upon a Time in New Jersey, Into the Woods, South Pacific, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. She earned her M.F.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she worked for the Harmonie Park Playhouse, The Hillberry Theatre, the Museum of African American History, and Michigan Opera Theatre. Her work has also been seen at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Archives, Wolftrap and the Woolly Mammoth. Curtis Drestch (Lighting Designer) has been designing, teaching and administrating at Muhlenberg since 1979. He is a professor of theatre arts and the Director of Design/Technical Theatre. He has previously served as Dean of the College for Faculty, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Dean of the College for Academic Life. His designs have been seen in both MTA and SMT productions, as well for the PA Stage Company, Terry Beck Dance Troupe, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Theatre Three, and the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas. B.A., Montana State University; M.F.A., Southern Methodist University.
Ken Butler (Musical Director) is Executive Assistant to the President of Muhlenberg College. He has worked on twenty MTA and SMT productions, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, West Side Story, The Mikado, Blood Brothers, Godspell, Little Shop of Horrors, and Into the Woods; he also provided arrangements for Cloud Nine and Our Town, musical direction and orchestrations for Schoolhouse Rock Live! and The Frog Prince, and wrote a new book and lyrics for Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. Susan Toman has worked as a carpenter, master carpenter, or ATD on every MTA show since 2003. She has worked for SMT as the Assistant Technical director for both the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Her set design credits include The Vagina Monologues in 2006 at Cedar Crest College, The Cat in the Castle for SMT, and several studio productions including Power Lunch and Wasp. In addition to the tech theater experience, Toman has just completed her 6th season working for the New York Renaissance Faire.
The acting company includes: Robert J. Wagner (Cladwell, Asst. Choreographer) has performed in SMT’s Candide and MTA’s Big Love! and Lures and Snares. Other credits include Psycho Beach Party with Theatre Outlet and Annie Get Your Gun with Shawenee Playhouse. last summer. Brigitte Choura (Hope) has been seen in SMT’s Taffetas and MTA’s Measure for Measure, Pippin, Lures and Snares and Big Love. She also assistant directed MTA’s Dancing at Lughnasa. Will Porter (Bobby Strong) has performed in Cabaret and Pippin, and danced in faculty and student-choreographed concerts at Muhlenberg. Porter trained at Kirov Academy of Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School, and Interlochen Arts Camp for Musical Theater. Rachel Sonia Pereira (Little Sally) performed in SMT’s Carousel and MTA’s On The Town, Pippin and The Pillow of Kantan. Sarah Primmer (Pennywise) performed in SMT’s Carousel and the campus productions Marathon Theater 2005 and A Grand Night for Singing. She served as Assistant Music Director for MTA’s The Pillow of Kantan. Craig Hanson (Officer Lockstock) performed in SMT’s Miss Nelson Has a Field Day and MTA’s New Voices 2005 and Émigré. Other credits include Psycho Beach Party with The Theatre Outlet.
