Director's Note
Why Urinetown?
Urinetown opened in September of 2001, the same time that I began working at South Side. I loved it for its humor, satire, irreverence, self-referential jokes, and stylistic quoting of so many musical works. With its questionable title and vision of a dystopian Gotham, its success in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in New York City is surprising, but also a testament to the resilience of New Yorkers and of Broadway. At the time, the Broadway community was concerned about whether people would want to return to the theatre so soon and wondered what type of theatre audiences wanted or needed. People did come back, searching for many different things, eager to laugh, cry, think, be challenged, be entertained or just be with others in a communal experience.
Urinetown is set sometime in the future, but hearkens back to the 1930s and the plays of Mark Blitzstein, and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. With musical and choreographic nods to musicals such as Threepenny Opera, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Les Miserables and more, students working on the show-and audiences viewing it–are treated to a crash course in musical theatre history.
While the musical may be viewed as allegorical, a cautionary tale about being blind to climate change, and wasting our country's precious resources, or a dig at corporate America, capitalism and economic disparity, it is certainly not didactic. The blind optimism of the revolutionary heroes are mocked as much as the self-aggrandizement of those in power All the characters in Urinetown are flawed: the corrupt politicians, greedy corporate executives, power-hungry policeman, wide-eyed do-gooders, sycophantic toadies, and socialist provocateurs. No one is spared the authors' satirical send-up.
Urinetown presents serious ideas without taking itself too seriously. So while it doesn’t offer any solutions, I hope that what it does offer is enough: a celebration of theatre, song and dance and a chance to laugh at our foibles. Perhaps there is just a touch of what Brecht's plays asked of the spectators. Brecht hoped his audiences would stay analytical, think about their own world and how it could be made better, and then be inspired to go out and change it. If you get that from the show, that would be okay, too.
It has been a joy working with the students on this material and collaborating with my colleagues and the design team. Please enjoy the performance—and be happy that at least some things, for now, are still free.
-Pam Seiderman
