Urinetown - Director’s Note

I love my job. Our world is full of overwhelming tragedy and just when we think things can’t get any uglier out there, somehow they inevitably do. But I get to make fun, smart theatre about it with wonderful, talented students. Urinetown is a remarkable piece of writing. Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis managed to paint a picture of a world suffering from utter ecological devastation that still somehow manages to be bite sized. The constant winking at the audience is purposeful. The characters are delightfully not complex. The story feels comfortingly familiar and the comedy is abundant. It is also an equal opportunity offender. Urinetown doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to poking fun. No one is safe. The police, the government, the wealthy, the poor, people who believe in romance, the dead, musical theatre lovers or really anyone anywhere who can or can’t take a joke are ripe for satire and will be made to face it. But what I like best about it is that it doesn’t apologize. Urinetown simply is what it is. It asks you to take a moment to see the humor everywhere. The world is scary. It was scary in 2001 when it debuted on Broadway (for perspective, it’s original opening date was set for 9/13/2001) and it is, in many ways, far scarier now. We have to wear masks in our production because of COVID rules but we have justified them in the world of the play. We are pretty sure the world of this show stinks really badly and the air is tough to breathe. Hence, masks make sense. Right now we are living through a pandemic, as I write this a war is raging in Ukraine, and the UN just released truly devastating climate numbers. I am incredibly fortunate. I got to spend the last 2 months shepherding a remarkable group of humans through a rehearsal process of a musical comedy that just so happens to be about worldwide ecological devastation (but also love and justice). I cherish every moment spent in creative collaboration with Emily Clark and Alejandro Senior and with these students (both onstage and off) on this work. Enjoy your time in this theatre. In the end, that is the aim of this show. It seems to take itself very seriously but of course it’s really incredibly silly. So please don’t be afraid to laugh out loud.