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Dramaturg’s Note

By Sophia Bracco

       Urinetown, written by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, opened on Broadway at the Henry Miller Theatre on September 20th, 2001, closed on January 18th, 2004, and received ten Tony Award nominations. 

     Greg Kotis got the idea for Urinetown when he didn’t bring enough money to Paris in 1995, and had to limit his trips to the city’s pay toilets.   Urinetown is set in a dystopian futuristic society, and is purposefully not set in a specific place as a metaphor that it could happen anywhere.

     Urinetown is a comedy in the form of a satire, which is a form of comedy that is used to criticize something in society. Urinetown satirizes many things, some of which include capitalism and corporate mismanagement. There were several strong influences on Urinetown. Bertolt Brecht, who created “epic theatre”, was one of them. “Epic theatre” is a type of theatre that is written in a way that the audience is fully aware that they are watching a play. Bertolt Brecht collaborated with Kurt Weill on several musicals which heavily influenced Urintetown. Another influence was Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock.   Set in fictional Steeltown, USA, its plot has many parallels to Urinetown. 

     At the end of Urinetown, the characters yell “Hail Malthus.” This is a reference to Thomas Malthus, an 18th century economist who theorized that human populations cannot grow unchecked and at some point there will be a major catastrophe that decreases the population.