Tickets for “Urinetown: The Musical” to go on sale on Tuesday

George Rogers Clark High School is not unfa­mil­iar with host­ing a musi­cal each spring.  However, this year’s edi­tion has one of the more unique – though engag­ing – titles in recent memory. 

“Urinetown: The Musical”, a satir­i­cal com­e­dy by Greg Kotis (book and lyrics) and Mark Hollman (music & lyrics), will pre­mière at George Rogers Clark High School at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, April 10, and Saturday, April 11.

There will also be a show­ing on Sunday, April 12, from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m.  Tickets will be on sale begin­ning Tuesday, March 10. 

“The tick­et rates are $10 for adults and $5 for stu­dents and chil­dren,” said GRC choir teacher Kris Olson, who is help­ing to direct the play. “We’ll have tick­ets avail­able at the door on the day of the show at the gate, but get­ting them online is always the best way to get the seats you want. It’s hard to believe…we’re already at tick­et-sell­ing sea­son . … we’re real­ly proud to get to the point where we can start open­ing doors and sell­ing tick­ets and get­ting peo­ple in here.”

Urinetown, which pre­miered on Broadway in 2001, is described at https://www.mtishows.com/urinetown. 

“Winner of three Tony Awards, three Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards and two Obie Awards, Urinetown is a hilar­i­ous musi­cal satire of the legal sys­tem, cap­i­tal­ism, social irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty, pop­ulism, envi­ron­men­tal col­lapse, pri­va­ti­za­tion of nat­ur­al resources, bureau­cra­cy, munic­i­pal pol­i­tics, and musi­cal the­atre itself! Hilariously fun­ny and touch­ing­ly hon­est, Urinetown pro­vides a fresh per­spec­tive on one of America’s great­est art forms. 

In a Gotham-like city, a ter­ri­ble water short­age, caused by a 20-year drought, has led to a gov­ern­ment-enforced ban on pri­vate toi­lets. The cit­i­zens must use pub­lic ameni­ties, reg­u­lat­ed by a sin­gle malev­o­lent com­pa­ny that prof­its by charg­ing admis­sion for one of humanity’s most basic needs. Amid the peo­ple, a hero decides that he’s had enough and plans a rev­o­lu­tion to lead them all to freedom!

Inspired by the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, Urinetown is an irrev­er­ent­ly humor­ous satire in which no one is safe from scruti­ny. Praised for rein­vig­o­rat­ing the very notion of what a musi­cal could be, Urinetown cat­a­pults the “comedic romp” into the new mil­len­ni­um with its out­ra­geous per­spec­tive, wicked­ly mod­ern wit, and sus­tained abil­i­ty to pro­duce gales of unbri­dled laughter.” 

Olson not­ed that the sto­ry and its mean­ing went well beyond what some people’s first impres­sions might suggest. 

“The premise is sil­ly, but there’s a lot of real­ly good points it makes about sus­tain­abil­i­ty, about the nature of pow­er, (about) munic­i­pal pol­i­tics, there’s a lot of (impact­ful) stuff in there,” he said, adding that eco­nom­ics were also high­light­ed. “It does a lot to sort of par­o­dy the gen­res and tropes of music the­ater them­selves, and so it’s both polit­i­cal satire as well as sat­i­riz­ing Broadway as a form.” 

He not­ed that the songs also held much value. 

“Because the title is so bizarre, even in those days when it first came out, it was sort of…hard at first to wrap your mind around (it),” Olson added. “Then, once you get into the songs … you real­ize there’s so much under­neath the surface.” 

While more infor­ma­tion will be released as the pro­duc­tion date draws near­er, Olson notes that there are many to thank for the production. 

Among them are senior stu­dent chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Belle Galloway and assis­tant chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Audrey Saylor. 

“(Belle) has chore­o­graphed shows in the past … with her sis­ter, but we’re real­ly proud of the work she does as an artist,” Olson said. “(Saylor’s) get­ting to chore­o­graph some­thing for the first time, and we’re real­ly proud of what the stu­dents are doing to do orig­i­nal dances and to teach them.” 

Olson added that he hopes to see many from Winchester become involved.

 “There’s a lot as an audi­ence mem­ber to digest as well. People should def­i­nite­ly come see the show, but it’s worth spend­ing some time again lat­er, kind of going back and lis­ten­ing to albums and record­ings and kitchen lyrics or lit­tle com­po­si­tion­al ideas that the writ­ers threw in,” he said. “I’m excit­ed for peo­ple to get to hear a lot of this music for the first time.”