Drama Club Presents Urinetown: The Musical Nov. 13-15

The Alfred State College Drama Club will present its fall production, Urinetown: The Musical, Friday through Sunday, Nov. 13-15, in the Orvis Auditorium. Friday and Saturday night performances at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday matinee performance at 3 p.m. Tickets are $3 for ASC/AU students and senior citizens (62+); $5 for the general public; tickets may be purchased at Orvis Activities Center (Student Activities) or ACES campus store (Alfred).

Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical musical comedy, (music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis), which satirizes capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and petty small town politics. It also is a satire of the Broadway musical as a form.

A decidedly witty and silly musical, Urinetown will have audiences laughing until they cry. Despite this, Urinetown addresses an issue that permeates our society and is a particular area of interest at any institute of technology: sustainable resources. Urinetown asks us what we will do when we run out of useable water, and forces us to think about what we will do to avoid getting to that point.

Featuring a cast of colorful and absurd characters, Urinetown mercilessly mocks musical convention. Urinetown went from being a joke in the mind of writer Greg Kotis while he was backpacking through Europe to a Broadway sensation.

Urinetown debuted at the New York International Fringe Festival, was produced Off-Broadway at the American Theatre for Actors, and then moved to Broadway, opening at Henry Miller's Theatre on Sept. 20, 2001, and closing on Jan. 18, 2004, after 25 previews and 965 performances.

It was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won three: Best Director (John Rando); Best Original Score (Hollmann and Kotis); and Best Book of a Musical (Kotis).