Director's Notes for
Urinetown the Musical

     It is over a game of pool on closing night (which Debbie inevitabley allows me to win) that the converstion begins: "What show are we doing next year?" After the hundreds and hundreds of hours and numerous months of planning and rehearsals that go into a musical, it's amazing how one show is barely put to rest before we start talking about the next one. The discussions are sometimes tough: "Are there any shows we are excited about? What is going to challenge us and the students?" and so on... We had our list of 26 shows that we were considering, until the day I found a "backdoor" to procure the rights to a show called Urinetown . I knew that his show would certainly challenge us: perhaps the biggest challenge being getting people to come see a show with such a title.

     The inspiration for the writer of the show came from his extended visit in France where his monetary resources became very tight. Unfortunately, money was necessary to do his necessary business at public amenities. It was during this trip he began to conceive of a place where all of the public toilets were owned by one evil man, whose motiviation was greed rather than the well being of his community. Thus, Urinetown: the Musical was born. The style of the piece is meant to satirize musicals in general, but especially the depression era works of Bertoit Brecht, a German playwright who is most famous for writing The Threepenny Opera, . Brecht believed that theatre should deal with social and political issues and that audiences should be motivated to go out and change the world based on what they witnessed on stage. It is this "theatre of the oppressed" that we pay tribute to this evening. Enjoy the show and hopefully you'll agree: It really is a privilege to pee!

     - Gavin