What is Urinetown?

If you've seen the musical, you know that Urinetown is a variety of things: the end, a tool, a lie, here, as well as your town if you're hopeless down and out. If you've seen the musical, you know that Urinetown is a smart, funny and subversive musical. However, you probably have not seen the musical because you can't get past the title. This makes me sad, as I think Urinetown was one of the best musicals of the first decade of the 21st century and it has the Tony awards to back up my claim. So I was quite happy that PSU's production gave me an opportunity for a great evening of theater. And Matt hadn't yet seen the play, so along we went.

The bathrooms had the "Urine Good Company" pay toilet signs. Luckily, Penelope Pennywise wasn't around to collect the fee.

Lincoln Hall (once upon a time Lincoln High School before the moved to a bigger location) was recently renovated by PSU and everything is shiny and new.

We weren't the only ones wanting to take our picture in front of the poster.

Someone volunteered to snap us, so no self-portrait necessary. Matt is sad because he would not do well in Urinetown.

Bios of the performers, as well as history of the play.

Corwin T. Bear really got into character.

Our tickets.

Urinetown is here!

We attended the play on opening night, though there had been a preview night the day before. The production was plagued with sound problems. Often I found myself wondering if PSU could spend all the money refurbishing the building, why they couldn't pony up for a good microphone system. The cast handled the matter as best they could, but it was very distracting.

Other than that, it was a fabulous production, with great acting, dancing and singing. The man who played Officer Lockstock was particularly good, as was Hope Cladwell. I can't find my program to identify those actors by name. The best number was the Cop Song, which managed to be laugh-out-loud funny and incredibly creepy all in a few short minutes.

Future me can tell you that I went back on closing night and found they had resolved most (although not all) of their microphone issues.