The University of Idaho Argonaut

The cast of the play "Urinetown" rehearses in the Hartung Theater Friday evening. "Urinetown" will be running from April 17-20 and April 24-27. Jake Barber/Argonaut

The plot of “Urinetown” follows an American society that has just seen a 20-year drought. Water shortages have forced people to surrender control of all water amenities to a corporation called “Urine Good Company,” who rations water usage and human waste disposal.
Private restrooms have been made illegal and public restrooms charge admission, causing the poor to relieve themselves in the streets. Thoughts of rebellion against UGC begin to emerge as the story begins.
Kotis was inspired to write the play after he encountered a pay-per-use toilet during a trip through Europe.

Kotis later collaborated with composer, Mark Hollmann to create the Broadway musical, with the intention of producing a humorous script to poke fun at classic Broadway plays.
“There’s a whole slew of musicals that they kind of honor by spoofing them,” Johnston said, “but if you’re not familiar with those plays, the lyrics are so original it’s still completely enjoyable.”

The UI Department of Theatre and Film and the Lionel Hampton School of Music have collaborated to produce the show, which has won three Tony Awards, including best director, best original score, and best book of a musical.
“For those who like traditional musicals, it may be fun to see a different approach,” Johnston said, “and I see why sometimes students may not identify with the themes of other musicals, but this one should work for anybody.”

“It’s absolutely a blast,” said actress Bridget Rue Esterhuizen. “It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve ever worked on.”
Esterhuizen, who is playing the part of Pennywise (and Josephine, one night) is an MFA candidate for theatre and film and has performed in musicals at the University of Idaho before, including “Oklahoma!.”
She said that “Urinetown” has thus far been her favorite musical project.

“This role is especially fun,” Esterhuizen said. “As far as developing a character is concerned, the world that Diane is creating is really a no-rules kind of world. Though the content is very real, it sort of defies realism with its style.”
Esterhuizen said that Johnston began working on the production with “solid concepts already in place.”
She said that the play is meant to convey a “1950’s-Broadway-glory-time-of-musicals” feel, along with a gangster-world environment and the influence of anti-utopian novels, such as George Orwell’s 1984.
She said the performance is characterized by a lot of physical comedy and general “bigness.”

“I thinwk what serves the play the best is the storyline,” said actor, John Bagaglio, “because it’s a parody of musicals like West Side Story and Les Miserables. Certain things that you expect to happen in a musical kind of go the other way in this, and it’s very funny and well written.”
One aspect of the show that Johnston is particularly excited about is the elaborate dance choreography, directed by Melissa Woelful.

“Melissa is really amazing,” Johnston said. “She looks at the dance moves as an integral part of the telling the story and I’m blown away at how quickly the cast learned it all.”
Another area of the production that Johnston cited as unconventional is its underground marketing campaign.

“I think a lot of the student population here doesn’t know about what our shows are like,” Johnston said. “When they hear ‘musical’ they think ‘oh, my mom and my grandma like to see showws like that.’ But this is one that should especially appeal to college students.”
The theater department has established MySpace and Facebook pages dedicated to the event and cast members have spent the past few weeks wearing t-shirts and handing out stickers bearing the UGC company logo to inspire questions and hopefully interest.