URINETOWN SYNOPSIS Lyrics - Urinetown Soundtrack

Urinetown looks to be the first hit musical of the 2001-02 Broadway season, with the authors using the the musical works created by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as a basis for their inspiration - also placing half-a-dozen other musicaal intertexts within this innovative and inspirational melting pot. This show owes more to musicals of the Golden Age than to the pop-rock scores of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The production has been described as "a neo-Brechtian absurdist melodrama about a city in the midst of a drought so devastating that a malevolent corporation has been able to take control of all the toilet facilities. Greed, corruption, and betrayal run rampant and the public desperately seeks relief." The result is a glorious pastiche that lampoons musical theatre at the same time that it reveals a deep knowledge and love of it.

A terrible water shortage, caused by a 20-year drought, has crippled the Gotham-like industrial city that serves as the setting for Urinetown: The Musical. In a mad attempt to regulate water consumption, the government has outlawed the use of private toilets. The citizenry must use public, pay-per-use amenities owned and operated by Urine Good Company (or "UGC") a private corporation run by the corrupt and iron-fisted Caldwell B. Cladwell. When regular Joe Bobby Strong decides he’s had enough, he leads a revolution to overthrow Cladwell and UGC. Caught in the middle of all this is Cladwell’s daughter, the beautiful and innocent Hope, who, of course, is in love with Bobby. The production runs for 130 minutes.