URINETOWN Book and lyrics by

GREG KOTIS

Music and lyrics by

MARK HOLLMANN

FABER AND FABER, INC. An affiliate of farrar. Straus and Giroux I New York For Bob, Scott, Laura, Phil, Hannah, a-rrtriohnnie

FABER AND FABRR, INC, Theater production-costs are skyrocketing everywhere, and in An affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux New York, Broadway budgets and "development" expenses can 19 Union Square Wc.~t, New York 10003 approach those of the movies. But storefront theater companies Ubretto copyright © 1998 by Greg Kocis and Mark Hollmann Book copyright © 2003 by Greg Karis and Mark Hollmann can still thrive in Chicago. Or at least they could in the late Preface Cfpyright © 2003 by David Auburn 1980s and early 1990s, when a company with drive and its own Introduction copyright © 2003 by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann All rights reserved sensibility could reasonably hope to attract the attention of the Distributed in Canada by Penguin Books of Canada Limited Primed in the United States of America public and find a space cheap enough to put on a few shows a FIRST EDITI0:'\1, 2003 year without going broke.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A group called Cardiff Giant found two such spaces. One was Kocis, Greg. on Chicago's North Side, where they performed original plays [Urinetown. Libretto] Urinetown, the musical/ book by Greg Kotis ; lyrics by Greg Kotis and Mark that they wrote as an ensemble. The other was in Jimmy's Wood­ Hollmann.- lst ed. P· em. lawn Tap, a South Side bar not far from the University of ISBN 0-571-21182-8 (pbk.) Chicago, from which most of the group's members had either 1. Musical-Librettos. I. Hollman, Mark, 1%3- IL Title. graduated or not -quite-graduated. Here they mounted a weekly ML50.K8785 U75 2002 782.1'4'0268-ddl improvisational show that often generated raw material for the 2002033875 plays. Designed by Gretchen Achilles The improv was more anarchic, the plays highly structured, www.fsgbooks.com but in both settings the group created a theatrical landscape with features not to be found elsewhere. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I The stories were usually set in a kind of mid-twentieth­ CAUTION: Professionals and arnareurs are hereby warned that all material in chis book, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, the British Empire including century Everytown. They were highly referential, with elements the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union is subject to roy­ drawn impulsively from old movies, cartoons, dimly remem­ alty. All rights, including professional, amareur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation inro foreign lan­ bered 1V ads and grade-school educational films, and texts from guages, are strkdy reserved. The stoc.k and amateur performance rights in the English lan­ the required U. of C. humanities and sociology classes. There guage throughout the United States, it~ territories and possessions and the rest of the World are controlled exclusively by William Craver, Writers and Artisrs Agency, 19 West 44th Street, was a lot of intrigue, scheming, double-dealing. There were a lot Suite I 000, New York, New York l 0036. No professional or nonprofessional performances of the play (excluding firsr-class professional performance) may be given without obtaining in of evil or demented geniuses (I remember one who derived his advance the written permission of William Craver and paying che requisite fee. Inquiries con­ schemes from talking to a peanut), wise waifs (usually played by cerning all other rights should also be addressed to William Craver, at the address stated above. men), angry mobs, corrupt politicians, and ingenues who turned

PREFACE v out to be as obsessive and bent as the villains they were opposing. rewarded. The overall effect was oddly, and gratifyingly, hard­ There were copious flashbacks, flash-forwards, dream and fantasy headed. sequences, visitations from ghosts, etc. Characters even in realis­ This sensibility, too, is intact in Urinetown. What's most star­ tic situations supplied their own sound effects. Plot twists or sur­ tling about the__ musical might be the rigor with which Kotis and prise revelations occasioned huge double takes, accompanied by Hollmann work through their famously absurd premise. The a baffled "Wha-?" water shortage that drives the plot produces villains and heroes, The shows were dizzying and incredibly funny. I remember corruption and idealism-but the heroes have no monopoly on many nights walking out of Jimmy's with my face aching· from virtue, and it's not just the villains who grow corrupt. Though laughing so hard. Urinetown mocks the conventions of musicals, it is not primarily Anyone who has seen Urinetown will be familiar with that a spoof of them, as many reviews have held it to be (actually, sensation. Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, the show's authors, it has the most solid, old-fashioned construction of any book were two of the driving forces behind Cardiff Giant, and for musical in recent memory). If it is any kind of satire, it's not of those of us who saw their Chicago shows ten or more years ago, musical theater but of human corruption-as Cardiff Giant's part of the excitement of Urinetown is in seeing that anarchic, work was, and Ben Jonson's and Brecht's as well. bizarre, Chicago storefront sensibility transferred intact, and in Like Brecht, Kotis and Hollmann hammered out a unique some ways enhanced, to the world of the big-budget Broadway sensibility for themselves by performing in bars and tiny theaters. musical. Then they refined and enlarged it to the point where it can en­ This is something Broadway badly needs. Much of the energy tertain and speak meaningfully to a large audience. That accom­ in any art form in any era is supplied by the experiments that plishment doesn't just put them in a great theatrical tradition. It bubble up from below. Not very much that's new or exciting has gives hope to storefront theater companies everywhere-and to bubbled up in the Broadway musical during the last few years, Broadway, too. probably because of high production costs and the aesthetic con­ servatism they engender. Urinetown's succe.ss is a [errific blow to that conservatism. And audiences walking out of the show on Broadway are so giddy and happy that its success there now seems like a forgone conclusion. But of course it wasn't at first, not any more than it was obvi­ ous a decade ago that Cardiff Giant's peculiar style could work in the mainstream. It certainly wasn't obvious to me. Though I loved the shows, my memory of them isn't particularly sunny. They could be pretty bleak, actually. They put human corrup­ tion, weakness, and cupidity on hilarious display. Villains were sometimes punished, but idealism was usually betrayed, not

VI PREFACE PREFACE VII INTRODUCTION

.JUNE 2

On June 2, 2002, Urinetown won three Tony Awards (one for book, one for score, and a third for direction), an event that-as of this writing-still feels quite warm and wonderful and diffi­ cult to believe. Throughout the evening of the Tony broadcast, people would approach me and ask, "Did you ever think the show would get this far?" to which I would answer, "Well, no, I didn't." An obvious answer to an obvious question. Urinetown, as they knew, and as you may know, arrived on Broadway as a ludi­ crous, harebrained transfer from Off-Broadway, itself an even more ludicrous transfer from Off-Off-Broadway. The show, ap­ parently, was this absurdist musical about a world where people had to pay to pee, appropriate, perhaps, for some fringe festival on the Lower East Side of New York City, but not for Broadway, and certainly not as a nominee for a bevy of Tony Awards. At each leg of Urinetown's journey from Stanton Street (Off-Off­ Broadway) to Forty-third Street (Broadway), the conventional wisdom seemed to mutter, "This must not happen." And yet, at each leg, it did happen-the show survived, flourished even, and eventually snuck its way forward toward that Broadway night of nights. By the end of the evening's festivities, these "Did you ever think?" exchanges became something of a ritual, the asker know­ ing the answer, the answerer welcoming the basically rhetorical question. They took on the verbal equivalent of pinching your­ self to see if you're awake-"Am I dreaming? Apparently not." The question, to be sure, is still welcome, because the journey

INTRODUCTION IX isn't over yet. As of this writing, Urinetown is planning a national ply "How can I not spend any money until I can reclaim my tour, as well as a flurry of international productions, including ticket to the States and-go-h,;~e?" For me, the answer involved Seoul, Tokyo, London, and more. Urinetown has its very own sleeping in train stations, eating cheap but belly-filling foods, original cast recording, produced by a large, monopolizing cor­ and, strangely enough, avoiding going to the bathroom as much poration like RCANictor, no less. And now the text of the play as possible. Public bathrooms in Europe are pay-per-use. Some has been published by a not quite monopolizing, but at least re­ are old buildings in parks complete with towel-distributing at­ spected, mid-sized publishing outfit like Faber & Faber, com­ tendants; some are state-of-the-art, self-cleaning toilet-pods set plete with an introduction engaging enough to keep the reader proudly near city crossroads. Each involves a fee of some kind, reading until this very sentence. Given the origins and original some more expensive than others, all at the time prohibitive to intentions of the play, it all still feels quite difficult to believe, as me. I have never been able to just pee in the bushes (or between well as warm and wonderful. parked cars, as is often done in New York), nor do I do well un­ der the hostile gaze of restaurateurs who know a bathroom free­ loader when they see one. For me, the pay-per-use amenities THE IDEA FOR URINE'TOWitl were it. And so it was that on one particularly cold and rainy af­ ternoon in Paris, while I was making my way past the Luxem­ The idea for Urinetown first came to me during what might gen­ bourg Gardens, trying to determine how badly I needed to go to erously be described as a poorly planned trip to Europe during the bathroom and whether I should splurge and use one of the the late winter/early spring of 1995. At the time, I was perform­ toilet-pods I could see looming in the distance (or wait until just ing with the Neo-Futurists, a Chicago-based experimental the­ before dinner when I could combine two trips into one), that the ater company that was taking part in a theater festival in a small notion of a city where all public amenities in town were con­ Transylvanian (believe it or not) town called Sibiu. On our re­ trolled by a single malevolent, monopolizing corporation carne to turn flight, I decided to extend an overnight layover in Paris to me. And not only would the corporation control all the public spend two weeks bumming around Western Europe by myself, bathrooms but, being malevolent and monopolizing, it would to see the sights, and also to try and decide whether I would pro­ somehow ensure the prohibition of private toilets, thus guaran­ pose to my girlfriend and fellow Neo-Futurist, Ayun Halliday. teeing a steady flow of customers to its overpriced comfort sta­ For some reason I thought $300 would cover my expenses, and tions. With its wealth and influence on the rise, it would pay off as you might expect, I ran out of money almost immediately. politicians and the police, outlaw going in the bushes {and be­ What I had intended to be a medirative, economy-style back­ tween parked cars), and generally employ all available tools of packer excursion through the capitals of France, Germany, En­ persuasion to maintain its hammerlock on power. At its head gland, and Spain quickly devolved into a grim test of endurance, would be an evil capitalist genius controlling the world from be­ where the defining questions changed from "Am I getting hind his corporate desk. But would he really be so evil? For the enough culture?" and "How do I really feel about Ayun?" to sim- world he was controlling was suffering from a nearly uncontrol-

X INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XI !able ecological disaster-a drought that, at the beginning of our nies. Initially, I presented Mark wirh a narrative skeleton and a r story, had already entered its twentieth year. I stood there on rhe few scenes. Mark took rhe material away and carne back a few sidewalk for a moment or two, thinking rhe rhing through. The weeks later with "It's a Privilege ro Pee," Penelope Pennywise's notion seemed like a patently awful one, grand and ridiculous, a Act I wail about the cold, hard facts of life during the drought. It career (such as it was) ending embarrassment. And yet, at its was angry, pained, an unapologetic march in the tradition of core, it would also be a grand, ridiculous reflection of the world Brecht-Weill. There was Ms. Pennywise laying down rhe law to the downtrodden, screaming rhe truth as she knew it, an absurd­ as we know it to be1 complete with rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless, a government controlled by industry an~ an ist Brechtian anti-heroine. The show came alive in Mark's new industry that exists apart from and above us all. And driving it all song, the colors were clear, the tone pitch-perfect. would be the disaster, in this case the drought, a fact that Over the next three years we met after services at a church trumped all the other facts: the love, the rage, the greed, every­ where Mark played organ, sometimes infrequently, sometimes thing. It would be a musical, yes, a very big musical, and it intensively, trading notes and sharing the progress we had made would be called Urinetown. It might not be performed, perhaps in the intervening weeks. The process was slow, unpredictable, a should not be performed, bur it would be called Urinetown, and task of exploring the metaphor to its utmost, trying to bring the it would take place in a town where everybody had to pay to pee. world of the play into view. At first it was difficult to believe we Such is the thinking that comes from being too homesick, too were putting so much energy into this show called Urinetown; it broke, and roo full of belly-filling foods, while inhibiting natural was a freak show of a musical, a Frankenstein's Monster best kept bodily functions for too long. in the basement. We wrote it as if we didn't expect anyone bur maybe a few friends to see it, because at first we really didn't ex­ pect anyone but maybe a few friends to see it. We ballooned the

MARK cast size out ro thirty-six, a comfortably unworkable crowd of ac­ tors no producer would ever agree to (if ever one were to agree to Upon returning to the United States and moving to New York our premise in the first place). We devised a ghastly ending City (with Ayun, then my fiancee) to continue performing with where Cladwell's potbelly (he was originally described as a portly the Neo-Futurists, I approached Mark Hollmann, a long-time man) was revealed to be an obscenely distended bladder strapped friend and past collaborator, and pitched the idea to him. ro his body with belts, an unforgivably vulgar costume require­ Strangely, he was interested. Mark and I had worked intensively ment we felt confident no one could build. We hobbled our years before with the Cardiff Giant Theater Company, creating monster, sabotaging it with unproducible choices that would new plays with other company members through a process of en­ keep the work safely off the stage and in our respective desk semble improvisation. Since rhen, Mark had moved to New York drawers, where it belonged. And yet, at the same time, the mad­ to pursue a career as a composer while I stayed in Chicago to ness of the thing felt strangely joyful and free. Since it was un­ continue working with the Nco-Futurists, among other compa- producible, we allowed ourselves complete liberty in imagining

XIII XII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION \ .(,: the play, making choices that Were not just bad for the sake of ' this world, silenrly for the most part. And perhaps a musical that being bad but reckless for the sake of seeing where a story goes had deliberately shed the traditional credentials of a happy end­ when it goes where it probably shouldn't. What happens if the ing, or even a decent tide, might be exactly the right play to pres­ hero dies, not heroically, but desperately, and alone with his ent the thought we had in mind. We shrunk the cast down to enemies? What happens if the heroine is allowed her anger, then sixteen, then fifteen. We discovered the true ending of the play, allowed to act upon her impulse to incite a mob to murder her one that kept our villain a human being. And (unproducible father? And what happens if the play offers no clear prescription choices aside) we stayed true to the formal rules of musical the­ for the troubles it imagines, no "Love is the answer" or "Be true ater writing as best we could, wondering whether they might ap­ to yourself and all will be well"? And here we found the real heart ply even to Urinetown. of the play, the sense of fear that had hovered over ali our efforts. What had been a vague, uncertain point of view came into

sharper relief for us as the play grew bloodier and the stakes of THE FRINGE FESTIVAL the story rose. I have never been an environmentalist in any productive Mark and I spent the second half of 1998 dutifully sending out sense, nor can I claim to be a social activist, nor would I ·describe first draft scripts and demo tapes to theaters, agents, and produc­ myself as a particularly good citizen. Bur at the same time, I (like ers around the country, who would then duritully send form let­ most Americans, I suspect) have this creeping sense of dread that ters back to us in response. Our roots were in the do-it-yourself we're in the process of doing ourselves in, slowly but steadily, and theater world, but our hope was to find an ally in more estab­ there's nothing we can do about it. We burn too much oil, build lished circles who could help us put our monster on its feet. Un­ too many roads and too many houses, create too much garbage, fortunately (or fortunately, as it turned our), our unproducible and as human beings interested in pleasure, convenience, per­ choices proved entirely convincing, and by April 1999 we had sonal freedom, and individual progress, we're simply incapable of exhausted all traditional avenues of production and/ or develop­ making the changes necessary to save ourselves. The evidence ment save for an impoverished, upstart theater festival that took seems to be everywhere, in the oddness of recent climate swings, place each August in Manhattan called the New York Interna­ in estimates of future population growth, and in the choice of tional Fringe Festival. The Fringe, to be sure, was a last resort for leaders we select to articulate our national response to these facts. us. As Mark and I well knew, the Fringe was not so much a fes­ These problems seem so huge, so complete, so fundamental as to tival as a barely controlled riot where as many as 150 theater be unsolvable, and that was the issue Mark and I ultimately productions from across the country and around the world hoped to consider with this play. Yes, Urinetown would be ab­ descended on the streets of the Lower East Side for ten days in surd, allegorical, ridiculous, unproducible. But, at the same time, August, each working ferociously to press-gang as many audience it would present a world long past the point where good inten­ members as they could find to see their show. What we had in tions could do any good, a future we both fear and anticipate in mind was a musical, a real musical, that most intricate piece of

XIV INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XV r

theatrical machinery, and to trust it to the certain anarchy of the year, a real musical with singing and everything. Advance sales Fringe Festival seemed like folly. But by April 1999 it was the picked up. Fringe Festival or nothing, and while we toyed with nothing, we The theater was very hot for our first performance, as it would settled on the Fringe. Lucky for us. be for all performances. The roof of the garage was one vast, tar­ Fired anew by the threat of impending production, Mark and covered expanse that absorbed and exaggerated all the heat of I worked through the spring, meeting evenings and weekends in the August sun. Fans were brought in and spread throughout the the church where Mark played organ to polish the script into house, hung from the ceilings, all humming loudly, moving the rehearsal readiness. We assembled an intrepid cast of young per­ hot air around. A garage door on the side of the theater was kept formers, each stuck jh New York for the summer for various rea­ open to let in fresh air, which also let in chatter from the ticket sons, but each gap>e enough to give our show a shot. We booths. It was a dirty, dangerous, uncomfortable place to see a rehearsed whenevonce, but we were ance, word spread that the festival was hosting a musical this getting laughs. The crowd, our first crowd, was with us. When

XVI INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XVII the lights popped off at the end of the first-act finale, the audi­ (as we learned to say) during and immediately after the Fringe, ence leaped to its feet; they cheered. Mark sat in a pool of sweat vaguely promising, but also vaguely dispiriting. Our first choice by his piano, unsure of how we had done, still peering at his was to remount the show as it was, a raw and rebellious produc­ sheet music, reliving his errors. The cast mingled backstage, their tion that might run in some other garage for a while, albeit a costumes sopping wet with perspiration, exhausted but happy to nicer one. But the more we talked to prospective producers, the be through the first hal£ And this is how we began. Urinetown more unlikely that particular prospect seemed to be. Space was was performed eight times as part of the Fringe, and four more scarce, money was scarce, and real musicals were impossible times at the same theater the weekend after the festival closed. enough to produce, let alone the deliberately impossible one we We oversoldnearly every performance, garnered the kind of crit­ hoped to remount. Months passed, and by the time the Araca ical response '1you inevitably daydream about working in theater, Group called us in for a second meeting, Mark and I had already and had a g9od time in the process. Even then we were being exhausted the various YIPs we had courted since the Fringe pro­ asked, "Did tou ever think the show would get this far?" duction had closed, each well-intentioned but ultimately in no position to advance our cause. The proposal the Araca Group made to us was this: Bring in a DEAL WITH THE DEVIL new director, someone known and respected, open casting to a wider pool of talent including seasoned veterans, and see what Of all the industry people who wandered through our show, it happens when the material is put in front of the powers that be. was only the Araca Group, partnered by Mike Rego, Matthew As a young and relatively green producing outfit, Araca was in a Rego, and Hank Unger, who understood how far Urinetown position to mount the show as a staged reading, but not much might one day go, and how it could get there. Mike, Matthew, more. The purpose of the reading would be to test the material and Hank were upstarts, buccaneering producers eager for a away from the Fringe environment, and to solicit the interest horse to bet on, and fully willing to risk other people's money (as and assistance of more experienced producing partners with well as their own) on a long shot like Urinetown. When I first greater resources and know-how. The show is an odd duck, they met Mike, he struck me as the enemy incarnate (albeit a very argued, but treat it like a Broadway musical and it might just young one), acutely interested in money, ambitious, strangely have legs. This, of course, was the hardest part of our journey good-looking, and not ashamed to interrupt our conversation to with the show. We felt loyal and indebted to our Fringe group, answer his cellphone. At our initial meeting on the night that he and never before in our time writing plays had we been asked to first saw the show, Mike mostly asked questions, keeping his consider recasting anything. Shows were done with friends for cards close to his chest, his enthusiasm muted. Whom had we the love of it as much as anything else; changing the roster de­ talked to? What were our plans? How committed were we to the feated the purpose of the thing. But Araca's argument was strong: material? The director? The cast? He liked the show. He was Let backers see this material with actors they trusted and its po­ busy. He'd let us know. It was one of several meetings we "took'' tential (or lack thereof) would be apparent. We lobbied for our

XVIII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XIX r cast, demanding they all get a shot in front of the new director, stopped and released mid-sentence to keep the schedule on hoping for the best. In the end, our choice was to trust the play schedule; a near-panicky feverishness hovered over most of the to the Araca Group or walk away from the show for good. We proceedings. But as constrained as the process was, this was considered walking away, but in the end we chose to trust them. Mark's and my first real taste of the big time. Here we were, two unknowns from the do-it-yourself world of way-downtown the­ ater, and each day we arrived at rehearsal to watch these seasoned actors and directors apply their abilities to our play. We got to of­ fer opinions, participate in decisions, people treated us nice. And Unbeknownst to us, the Araca Group knew only one director of all the while, the play was coming closer and closer into view. note--John Rando-and with him we received perhaps the Here was Nancy Opel belting out Penelope Pennywise's "It's a luckiest break of all. In our first meeting with John he spoke Privilege to Pee'' with a mad rage and remorse above and beyond seriously, gravely even, about the substance of the play, its his­ our wildest hopes. There was Jennifer Laura Thompson as Hope torical antecedents, its larger context. He spoke to no one in par­ Cladwell, more captivating and more beautiful than the Grace ticular, to a spot hovering about three inches above the center of Kelly her character was first modeled on, and Daniel Marcus, the conference table we had spread ourselves around. But as he giddily bloodthirsty as Lockstock's sidekick, Officer Barrel. And, spoke he would crack up from time to time, shake off the grim­ finally, there was Spencer as Little Sally, a friend and fellow col­ ness for a second with an image of ridiculousness he hoped to see laborator from Neo-Futurist days, a Fringe stowaway like our­ in the show, then continue, grim again. Here was the man for selves, holding her own with the pros. the job, serious and loopy at the same time. John was then joined by the musical director Edward Strauss, grim and loopy in his own way, but exacting in precisely the way a musical director BIG TIME needed to be with our material. Over the next two months we collected a cast and set about The reading was presented twice m January 2000 at New mounting what's known as a twenty-hour reading. Two Fringe Dramatists on West Forty-fourth Street, the first during a traffic­ cast members were invited, including Spencer Kayden, who stopping blizzard, the second two days later amid the frozen de­ would continue with the production to Broadway, a happy vote tritus left by the storm. People came slogging through the snow, of confidence to the old crew, a crucial aesthetic clue to the new important people, industry people, including Michael David and one. What's special about a twenty-hour reading is that the actors Lauren Mitchell of Dodger Theatricals. Although I didn't know don't have to be paid that much (good for the producers, bad for it at the time, Dodger was and is one of the biggest players on the actors), but only twenty hours of their time can be used from Broadway. Their track record extends back decades, including the first moment of rehearsal to the final moment of the reading Gospel at Co/onus, Wrong Mountain, and many of the big-time (good for the actors, bad for the producers-and the writers, I Broadway revivals of recent years. At first glance, Michael seemed suppose). A stopwatch was present continuously, actors were to have something of the mad Russian holy man about him, a

XX INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXI benevolent version of Rasputin: friendly enough, but with all the OFF-BROADWAY spark that prerevolutionary figure suggests. And Lauren was (and is) strikingly tall and elegant, every bit the Broadway performer Months were committed to finding the right performance space, she began her career as. In addition to Michael and Lauren, each which turned out to be a poor but tenacious theater operating performance was attended by the powerful prospective producers above an active courtroom on West Fifry-fourth Street. Weeks the Araca Group had spoken of, representatives from many of were spent assembling a creative team, then auditioning new cast the major producing organizations and performing arts institu­ members to join Nancy, Jennifer, Daniel, and Spencer, including tions in the city, precisely the people Mark and I had solicited David Beach, Rachel Coloff, Rick Cram, John Cullum, John two years before. Deyle, Hunter Foster, Victor W. Hawks, Ken Jennings, Megan I was sitting in my car in a small town on Long Island, days af­ Lawrence, Jeff McCarthy, Lawrence E. Street, Kay Walbye, ter the reading, scouring houses for the TV show Law & Order and (eventually) Jennifer Cody. Weeks of rehearsals followed, a (my day job), when Mike Rego called to tell me the Dodgers thrilling process for me. There was John Cullum, cunning and wanted in. This was that particular piece of good fortune that smooth, creating the villain Cladwell before our very eyes. There made everything that followed possible. Michael and Lauren were was Hunter Foster creating Bobby Strong, Cladwell's nemesis, the "powers that be," so to speak, precisely the kind of creative giving the hero more honesty and gritty charisma than the James producers a show like Urinetown needed. Mark and I, as well as Dean-style character we had originally envisioned. And there Mike, Matthew, and Hank, were called into a meeting at Dodger was Jeff McCarthy, the kevstone of all our efforts, anchoring the Theatricals, a high-Roar office in an old-time New York building show as Officer Lockstock, a murderously tough cop on the take overlooking Times Square. Posters of familiar theatrical triumphs with a soft spot for a little girl who would join him in explaining covered the walls, the office hummed (as they say) with important the show to the audience. And he had to sing, too. Amid it all, activity, all in all a convincing epicenter of Broadway power and an ensemble came into being, the creators of Tiny Tom, Hot accomplishment. We collected in a small conference room with Blades Harry, Senator Fipp, Mr. McQueen, Josephine Strong, clear views of New Jersey, and were offered water and coffee while Billy Boy Bill, Robby the Stockfish, Soupy Sue, and Little Becky we waited; then Lauren and Michael joined us, for them another Two-Shoes, a group that had to work harder, dance harder, and stop on a busy day. They sat down, introduced themselves, and perform harder than seemed possible. Rewrites were requested then began discussing the play as if they really meant to produce and, afrer some hair pulling, delivered. Characters were discov­ it. They liked the material. They liked the title! What was our vi­ ered, gags were discovered, the show was choreographed (by the sion for the show? The play was an Off-Broadway play, but could formidable John Carrafa), orchestrated (by the unrivaled Bruce we imagine it on Broadway? It's difficult to understate the miracle Coughlin), and altogether "Broadway-lied," as a friend termed it. of their enthusiasm. In a Broadway landscape that had become A few days before tech rehearsals began, we were invited to see increasingly risk-averse and corporatized, here were two players the set design Scott Pask had installed in the theater, a stunning with solid reputations offering to roll the dice and see what fate experience for two writers previously accustomed to dump­ awaited those who chose to produce the unproducible play. picked couches constituting the centerpieces of designs for past

XXIII XXII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION plays. More stunning still was to see Jonathan Bixby and Gregory BROADWAY Gale's costumes, worn on that stage by our cast and lit by Brian MacDevitt's wonderful plot. Advertisements appeared. Articles The Henry Miller, our Broadway destination, had been dark and appeared. Word spread that Urinetown had found its way to a derelict as a legitimate Broadway theater until only a few years commercial production. How was it possible? And yet it was before Urinetown transferred there. Ultimately resuscitated by a happening. Previews began Snnday, April I, a presumed April revival of Cabaret, the Henry Miller had been a nightclub, a porn Fools' joke for some. And then, finally, implausibly, Urinetown house, and an otherwise uncelebrated venue for sex farces andre­ opened Off-Broadway, Sunday, May 6, 2001, roughly nineteen vues since the 1960s. Previous to that, the Henry Miller had months after closing at the Fringe. been a legitimate stage, including among its productions Eugene At the opening-night party at a bar near the theater, Hank O'Neill's Days Without End, T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, and Unger arrived with the New York Times review. In olden days Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning Our Town, but that people would wait for the papers to land in bundles on the side­ heyday was long gone by the rime we arrived. During our first walk to learn what critical fate had befallen their show. Nowa­ walk-through of the space, we found the Henry Miller to be a days, reviews are posted first on the Internet, so that's what Hank dusry, crumbling antique, complete with holes in the ceiling and had, a printout from the Times's Web site. A few of us collected leopardskin carpeting left over from its seedier days. Bur like the on the sidewalk outside the bar. Jeff McCarthy, our barrel­ Stanton Street garage, and the floor above the court/precinct, the chested, silver-maned Officer Lockstock, read it aloud. In the Henry Miller was the perfect place for Urinetown. Broadway pre­ world of New York theater every accolade is precious, but the views began Monday, August 27, adjustments being made all the Times, as the tradition goes, gives life or takes it away. In our while as we approached our September 13 opening. Monday, case, we had been given life-a lot of life. Urinetown sold out its September I 0, as well as Tuesday, September 11, were press run, then extended performances to the end of June. The pro­ nights, those specific performances critics attend in advance of a duction was blessed with more accolades, including eleven show's actual premiere. Monday's performance was strong, an Drama Desk nominations, twtl Obie Awards, and a berth in that evening witnessed by reviewers from The New York Observer, the season's "Best Plays'' anthology. Shortly before the end of our Newark Star-Ledger, and USA Today, among others. Tuesday, Off-Broadway run, Mike Rego assembled the cast before a show September 11, was to be even more crucial, including theater to share with them (and with us) the outcome of the producers' writers from Newsday, the Associated Press, variety, and The New private schemings. We were going to Broadway, all of us. They York Times. That performance, of course, never took place. The didn't know where, exactly, but it was happening, so get ready. planes struck in the morning, and I, like many New Yorkers, There was no cheer during his announcement, no exhalation spent the day alternately hovering by the radio, looking out my that follows the crossing of a finish line. The cast asked ques­ window toward downtown Manhattan, and venturing into the tions, quietly, cautiously. People tugged on their costumes, ex­ streets of my neighborhood to try to understand what had be­ changing quick, happy grins. Their lives were changing. Our come of our city. Broadway performances were cancelled for that lives were changing. We had all bet on the right horse. evening, as they would be for the next, and as far as we knew, we

XXIV INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXV rI I wouldn't be opening for some time. It was difficult to imagine York en masse, declaring they would do their part by spending as I how we could possibly present our absurdist comedy in the much money as they could, in part on theater. Urinetown's cast, midst of so much tragedy, confusion, and fear. But at the behest musicians, and crew labored week by week throughout that most of the mayor, we did reopen, along with the rest of Broadway, difficult season, breathing life night after night into our musical inviting audiences to come back the Thursday after the attacks. with the terrible title. Houses were full, then slow, then full Times Square was relatively empty that night, itself an antici­ again. The show survived, prospered, and as the months ticked pated target, as it still is. Our audience was small, anxious, but off, we drew ever closer to awards season, even becoming a con­ eager, I think, to be in one another's company. Our director, tender for some of the most coveted statuettes of all. On May 6, John Rando, walked onstage and said simply that another word one year to the day after opening Off-Broadway, thirty-one for life is creativity. Theater, he said, could not save lives, nor months after closing at the Fringe Festival, Urinetown was happy could it put out fires, but it could offer creativity and life, which indeed to recetve ten Tony nominations, including one for is what we hoped to offer that night. John thanked the audience Spencer. and walked offstage. The lights dimmed, the overture played, the actors took their places, and the show began. Theater is a poor Greg Kotis relative in some ways to other forms of entertainment, to cinema New York City or television. But that night, for those audience members, there july 24, 2002 could have been no greater way to spend the evening than sitting in a theater witnessing fellow New Yorkers tell a story on a stage a few feet in front of them. Whatever fears that group of theater­ goers had, for themselves or their city, the actors and the musi­ cians and the crew had also. But those fears were shushed away for the evening by the choice to be together, in that place, at that time. Urinetown formally opened September 20, one week after our intended premiere. Again, the reviews were good. The critics re­ minded us that there truly was a serious core to all our silliness, after all, and furthermore, silliness can be anything but unwel­ come during times as serioUB as those we were all experiencing. Audiences grew, but each week we stayed open seemed like something of a miracle. Broadway faltered, then found its foot­ ing, revived by the goodwill of the city, just as the city was re­ vived by the goodwill of the country. During one week that autumn, a crowd of rwo hundred Oregonians arrived in New

INTRODUCTION XXVI INTRODUCTION XXVII I

I ~~ characters playing out often-absurd situations in a familiar, yet not specifically identifiable, world. Greg and I had that style in II common, along with a resourcefulness and work ethic that had helped keep Cardiff Giant artistically productive in spite of a tiny budget, like so many other Chicago non-Equity theater If a telephone poll had been taken on the matter, I suspect that companies. I think that Greg hoped to draw on all that when he most Americans would have said that the title alone made Urine­ tapped me as composer and lyricist for Urinetown. town not just a bad idea for a musical but a really terrible idea for In addition to working with Cardiff Giant, Greg worked with a musical. That is, if they had not already hung up. When Greg Chicago's famed Nee-Futurists troupe as a writer/performer in Kotis, having invited me over to his East Ninth Street apartment the long-running Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. I had in New York on a spring evening six years ago to talk about col­ branched out to play the trombone for Maestro Subgum and laborating on a new musical, asked me what I thought, my an­ the Whole, a highly theatrical but mostly indescribable cabaret/ swer probably placed me--with him-in a minority of two. I art-rock band. Like Cardiff Giant, these groups made up for in believed from the moment I heard it that the premise for Urine­ imagination and creativity what they lacked in funds. They en­ town was one of the best with which I had ever been presented. gendered a definite outsider's sensibility in Greg and me, and Yes, the tide made me nervous, but my many years in the fringe­ that prepared us well for the creation of Urinetown. performing-arts scene in Chicago-a background I share with For with our respective post-Cardiff Giant work, I can see Greg-had opened my small-town Midwestern boy's mind to how Greg and I were pushing our artistic tastes to new extremes. what I once might have thought taboo. In the process, previously off-limits material (by Cardiff Giant Our shared background included many prior collaborations, standards) became fair game. In one of Greg's two-minute plays through which the style of our work together on Urinetown can for Too Much Light, an exuberant narrator, played by Greg, ex­ be traced (by the countless hordes I'm certain were secretly fol­ plains repeatedly and in great detail how "Farts Cornel" (What, lowing our heretofore obscure careers). We first collaborated in you expected roses from the future author of Urinetown?) For my the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we were both coming part, working with Maestro Subgum exposed me to a challeng­ of age artistically in our twenties as ensemble members of the ing new aesthetic in music and lyrics. Many of the songs we per­ Cardiff Giant Theater Company, a now-defunct improvisational formed-written by the group's main songwriters, Beau O'Reilly, theater troupe in Chicago. As actor/playwrights in Cardiff Giant, Michael Greenberg, and Jenny Magnus--dealt with heroin ad­ we and our fellow ensemble members wrote, acted in, directed, diction, suicide, and other socially unacceptable behavior. These and produced five full-length plays and two full-length musicals. were topics that I had rarely thought or talked about, much less We also performed countless improv sets, based on audience sug­ written songs about, but I think that performing them night af­ gestions, in a weekly hour-long show called Avant-Garfielde. ter night broadened my viewpoint. It may even have prepared Over the course of about seven years as an active group, Car­ me to say yes to Greg Kotis when he asked me to write the songs diff Giant developed a distinct style of dark comedy, with broad for a musical centered on peeing.

INTRODUCTION XXIX XXVIII INTRODUCTION It wasn't merely a musical centered on peeing, however. Greg's ment, convey to me a man long convinced that the world is a concept for Urinetown rose above its provocative title. The proj­ fraud and wearily resigned to his place in it. ect he proposed to me had all the elements of a great musical: a Like Ms. Pennywise, Peachum is delivering the message that love story set against the backdrop of social upheaval, a protago­ all is not right i~ the world, and as he does, we understand that nist who would fight to the death for what he wanted, and a col­ he would rather deliver this message than hear it himself. I made orful cast of supporting characters. It also had the potential for Pennywise's "It's a Privilege to Pee'' faster and more martial than comic social commentary, like the Cardiff Giant shows. More­ Peachum's "Morning Hymn," but the stark, unapologetically over, in choosing to work with each other again, Greg and I had dim worldview of Peachum helped me believe that Penny's song a clear understanding that Urinetown, in spite of its title, would was possible. In both cases, it is the singers' righteous duty to tell contain no swear words or off-color situations, which had been the truth as they see it, and to lay down the law, hard. our principle in Cardiff Giant. When I had finished a first draft of the music and lyrics fur As composer and lyricist for our brand-new collaboration, I "It's a Privilege to Pee," I called Greg and invited him to hear it. had two immediate tasks: to start setting a tone or style for the We met at Christ Lutheran Church on East Nineteenth Street in music of the score and to find the places in Greg's script that Manhattan, where I served as organist. Sitting at the piano in the could be turned into songs. Although Greg eventually joined me sanctuary, amid stained-glass windows depicting scenes from the in writing lyrics, I always felt that spotting songs was mainly my Bible and tile mosaics portraying the saints, I played and sang job. At this point, in the late spring of 1996, not much of a Penny's rant, which got Greg laughing in appreciation. Laughter script existed, and Greg would not complete a full first draft un­ would become a barometer for us: if I laughed spontaneously at tillate 1997. From the first few pages he gave me, however, I was Greg's writing or he at mine, whatever got us laughing would able to get a handle on a style and could easily spot a terrific song usually stay in the show. That evening, I could tell from Greg's opportunity. laughter that this song clicked with his vision for Urinetown and It came in a scene early in Act ], wherein we meet Penelope that we were on to something. Pennywise, the hard-bitten matron of the filthiest urinal in town. Although "It's a Privilege to Pee'' was an early stylistic success, In this moment she is reading the riot act to the downtrodden the entire score was not written under the influence of Weill customers of her Public Amenity #9. It reminded me of a song and Brecht. I reached a certain point, perhaps after writing from Die Dreigroschenoper, or The Threepenny Opera, the 1928 the "Mack the Knife''-like "Urinetown'' opening number, when musical theater masterpiece by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. it became increasingly less practical ro toe the line. The The song was "Der Morgenchoral des Peachum" or "The Morn­ Brecht/Weill colors that came easily to me seemed to be a rather ing Hymn of Peachum," Mr. Peachum's wake-up call to his com­ limited palette. I soon turned to whatever influence or model pany of beggars. Brecht's opening lyrics for Peachum, which seemed appropriate for musically dramatizing the remaining translate as "Wake up, you rotting Christians," and which Weill spots for songs in Greg's libretto. As a Lutheran church organist, set with a craftily repetitive melody and droning accompani- I felt competent to tackle a hymn tune in "I See a River." The

XXX INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXXI melody of "Tell Her I Love Her" struck Greg and me as that ofa You have to know and respect a form thoroughly before you can mournful Irish ballad, well suited to Little Sally's report to her satirize it. At our Sunday writing sessions, when we sat around fellow revolutionaries. "Run, Freedom, Run" was a typical the piano at the church, I remember feeling that I was serving as second-act musical-comedy gospel tune. the musical theater expert for our collaboration. Greg had never In spite of a laundry list of srylistic and structural influences seen a musical on Broadway, whereas I had studied the form for (the ones that I'm aware of run the gamut from J. S. Bach to the some time, and I often found myself suggesting that we turn to B-52s), I tried to keep the score from veering into blatant par­ the exemplar American musicals for guidance. ody. I based this attitude on a rule of thumb in show business: A Some of those guiding principles were specific; others were joke is funnier if you don't smile while you're telling it. Since I more general. One instance of a specific principle would be the felt confident that Greg's script as well as his lyric contributions appeal of a rousing second-act gospel number. Broadway musi­ covered our satirical and parodical bases, I approached the song­ cals provide examples, from Frank Loesser ("Sit Down, You're writing with utter seriousness and all the craft I could muster. Rockin' the Boat" from Guys and Dolls, 1950) to Frank Wild­ That craft was one I had been honing since childhood. My horn {"River Jordan" from The Civil W0r, 1999). Urinetown's parents indulged me in piano lessons from the age of seven until score copies this template with the aforementioned "Run, Free­ I left home for college, where I studied music composition and dom, Run." decided that I wanted to write musicals for the rest of my life. Then there was a moment later in the second act, after "Run, After college, I had the good fortune to study musical-theater Freedom, Run," when I turned to a more general principle for songwriting with some extremely able teachers. At the same time help. It was the point in the story when the rebel poor take to the that I was performing in Chicago's fringe music and theater streets for revenge. We had already attempted to dramatize it scene, I was also enrolled in the musical-theater writing work­ musically with a slow, spooky reprise of "Tell Her I Love Her" shop of John Sparks. In his classes at Theatre Building Chicago, that ended up falling flat. In trying to figure out why the reprise John taught me the anatomy of a theater song, from AABA failed, I realized that its lugubriousness doomed it. The show structure to how to build a comedy-song lyric so that the joke needed a jolt of energy at this juncture, not eerie reflection. I was comes at the end of the line, where it packs more of a punch. reminded of George Gershwin's comment that just as an army When I moved to New York in 1993, I continued my studies at travels on its stomach, musicals travel on two-four (quick tempo) the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where Skip time. That anecdote became the inspiration for the late-second­ Kennon and Richard Engquist picked up where John had left act production number/montage "We're Not Sorry," which is off. All during this time I was writing musicals to pur these les­ anything bur lugubrious. sons into practice, so that when Greg asked me to work with him While I thought I had all the answers based on my love of old in 1996, I had been writing songs for eleven years and had com­ musicals, I soon learned, when I submitted a draft of the love pleted three full-length and four one-act musicals. ballad "Follow Your Heart" to Greg, that simply following those This training and experience helped me follow another rule of old paradigms wouldn't be enough to make the show work. thumb in show business while writing the score for Urinetown: He quickly sensed that something was amiss with the number. I

XXXII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XXXIII Originally produced by Theater of the Apes and presented in August 1999 by the New York International Fringe Festival, a production of the Present Company. Directed by Joseph P. McDonnell. Stage manager: Michael Stuart; assistant director I prop design: Wylie Goodman; costume design: Karen Flood; lighting: Peggotty Roecker; scene design: Jane Charlotte Jones.

CAST OF CHARACTERS IN THE

FRINGE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

OFFICER LOCKSTOCK Jay Rhoderick LITTLE SALLY Spencer Kayden BOBBY STRONG Wilson Hall HOPE CLADWELL Louise Rozett CALDWELL B. CLADWELL Adam Grant PENELOPE PENNYWISE Carol Hickey OFFICER BARREL Victor Khodadad MR. MCQUEEN Rob Maimer SENATOR FIPP Terry Cosentino OLD MAN STRONG Nick Balaban JOSEPHINE STRONG Kristen Anderson HOT BLADES HARRY Nick Balaban SOUPY SUE Bellavia Mauro TINY TOM Zachary Lasher HILDAGO JANE Allison Schubert LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES Raq uel Hecker MRS. MILLENNIUM Bellavia Mauro DR. BILLEAUX Zachary Lasher MRS. o'HENRY Kristen Anderson CLADWELL'S SECRETARY Raquel Hecker

3 MORE POOR Victor Khodadad, Terry Cosentino, Rob Maimer UGC EXECUTIVES Victor Khodadad, Allison The following text is based on the production of Urinetown that Schubert, Nick Balaban opened at the Henry Miller on Broadway, September 20, 2001. Produced by the Araca Group and Dodger Theatricals in associ­ Opened Off-Broadway at the American Theatre of Actors on ation with TheaterDreams, Inc., and Lauren Mitchell. Directed May 6, 200 1, with the same cast as the Broadway production, by John Rando. Musical staging: John Carrafa. Scenic I environ­ except that the roles of Little Becky Two-Shoes and Mrs. Millen­ ment design: Scott Pask; costume design: Gregory Gale and nium were created and performed by Megan Lawrence. Jonathan Bixby; lighting design: Brian MacDevitt; sound design: Jeff Curtis and Lew Meade; wig I hair design: Darlene Dan­ nenfelser; fight director: Rick Sordelet; orchestrations: Bruce Coughlin; musical direction: Edward Strauss; conductor: Ed Goldschneider; music coordinator: John Miller; production managers: Kai Brothers and Tech Production Services, Inc.; cast­ ing: Jay Binder, Laura Stanczyk, and Cindi Rllijh; production stage manager: Julia P. Jones; general management: Dodger Man­ agement Group; marketing: Dodger Marketing; press representa­ tives: Boneau I Bryan-Brown.

CAST OF CHARACTERS IN THE BROADWAY

PRODUCTION (in order of appearance)

OFFICER LOCKSTOCK _) Jeff McCarthy PENELOPE PENNYWISE ' Nancy Opel ''\ .. BOBBY STRONG Hunter Foster LITTLE SALLY ' , Spencer Kayden HOPE CLADWELL Jennifer Laura Thompson

MIL MCQUEEN David Beach

SENATOR FIPP John Deyle OLD MAN STRONG I V" Ken Jennings HOT BLADES HARRY

4 URINETOWN 5 SOUPY SUE I CLADWELL'S SECRETARY Rachel Coloff TINY TOM I DR. BILLEAUX RickCrom LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES I Jennifer Cody SETTING MRS. MILLENNIUM A Gotham-like city ROBBY THE STOCKFISH I Victor W. Hawks UGC EXECUTIVE #2

OFFICER BARREL t ~·"- Daniel Marcus TIME BILLY BOY BILL I UGC EXECUTIVE #! Lawrence E. Street JOSEPHINE STRONG I OLD WOMAN KayWalbye Sometime after the Stink Years

1 CALDWELL B. CLADWELL \. • \~ 1 John Cullum

CHARACTERS

OFFICER LOCKSTOCK, a policeman · LITTLE SALLY, a poor little girl BOBBY STRONG, assistant custodian at the poorest, filthiest urinal in town CALDWELL B. CLADWELL, president and owner of Urine Good Co. HOPE CLADWELL, CladwellS daughter; shes new in town PENELOPE PENNYWISE, chief custodian at the poorest, filthiest urinal in town OFFICER BARREL, LockstockS partner MR. McQUEEN, Cladwells right-hand man SENATOR FIPP, a public servant

OLD MAN STRONG, a poor man, Bobbys father, also known as joseph Strong JOSEPHINE STRONG, a poor woman, Bobbys mother, also known as Old Ma Strong HOT BLADES HARRY, a poor man soUPY suE, a poor woman TINY TOM, a poor boy LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES, a poor woman

7 8 URINETDWN \ ROBBY THE STOCKFISH, a poor man BILLY BOY BILL, a poor man

MRS. MILLENNIUM, a Urine Good Co. (UGC) executive DR. BILLEAUX, a UGC executive, head ofresearch Scene 1 CLADWELL's SECRETARY, a valued UGC employee UGC EXECUTIVES Early morning. The poorest, filthiest urinal in town. Above the en­ trance to the urinal hangs a sign that reads Public Amenity #9. coPs-and lots ofthem THE POOR lie sprawled across the stage, sleeping quietly. Music for "Urinetown" plays softly in the background. OFFICER LOCKSTOCK enters ftom the house, inspecting the theater for orderliness. Satisfied, he takes his place onstage and addresses the audience directly.

LOCKSTOCK: Well, hello there. And welcome--to Urinetown! (Pause.) Not the place, of course. The musical. Urinetown "the place" is ... well, it's a place you'll hear people referring to a lot throughout the show. (PENELOPE PENNYWISE and BOBBY STRONG enter. They carry with them a small table upon which rests a ledger.) PENNY: You hear the news? They carted Old So-and-So off to Urinetown the other day. BOBBY: Is that so? What he do? PENNY: Oh, such-and-such, I hear. BOBBY: Well, what do you know? Old So-and-So. (Bobby and Penny set up their workstation, placing the table beside the entrance to the amenity as THE POOR begin to rise.) LOCKSTOCK: It's kind of a mythical place, you understand. A bad . place. A place you won't see until Act Two. And then ... ? Well, let's just say it's filled with symbolism and things like that. (THE POOR sing the "Urinetown" theme on an "ooh" ever so softly as they prepare for another day. LITTLE SALLY enters, counting her pennies.)

8 8 URINETOWN ' ,<"

/ L<;lCKSTOCK: But urtnetownn· "ht e mus1ca'1" , we llh, ere we are. W,, we never fail! Welcome. It takes place in a town like any town ... that you And we never bother with jail. might find in a musical. This here's the first setting for the (MCQUEEN, FIPP, and BARREL enter. All sing.) show. As the sign says, it's a "public amenity," meaning public ALL: toiler. These people have been waiting for hours to get in; it's You'll get Urinetown! the only amenity they can afford to get into. Offyou'll go to Urinetown! (LITTLE SALLY approaches LOCKSTOCK.) Away with you to Urinetown! LITTLE SALLY: Say, Officer Lockstock, is this where you tell the LOCKSTOCK! audience about the water shortage? You won't need bail LOCKSTOCK: What's that, Little Sally? (HOPE CLADWELL enters. As LOCKSTOCK and LITTLE SALLY ·speak, LITTLE SALLY: You know, the water shortage. The hard times. HOPE approaches BOBBY at his table.) The droughtc A shortage so awful that private toilets eventu­ LOCKSTOCK: Later on you'll learn that these public bathrooms ally became unthinkable. A premise so absurd that­ are controlled by a private company. They keep admission LOCKSTOCK: Whoa there, Little Sally. Not all at once. They'll high, generally, so if you're down on your luck, you have to hear more about the water shortage in the next scene. come to a place like this-one of the poorest, filthiest urinals LITTLE SALLY: Oh. I guess you don't want to overload. them with in town. too much exposition, huh? LITTLE SALLY: And you can't just go in the bushes either-there's LOCKSTOCK: Everything in its time, Little Sally. You're too young laws against it. to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too LOCKSTOCK: That's right, Little Sally. Harsh laws, too. That's much exposition. why Little Sally here's counting her pennies. Isn't that so, Lit­ LITTLE SALLY: How about bad subject matter? de Sally? LOCKSTOCK: Well- LITTLE SALLY: I'm very close, Officer. Only a few pennies away. LITTLE SALLY: Or a bad tide, even? That could kill a show pretty LOCKSTOCK: Aren't we all, Little Sally. Aren't we all. good. (LITTLE SALLY keeps COUnting.) LOCKSTOCK: Well, Little Sally, suffice it to say that in Urinetown HOPE: Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me the way to the private (the musical) everyone has to use public bathrooms in order company that controls these public bathrooms? to take care of their private business. That's the central conceit BOBBY: You mean Urine Good Company? of the showwwl (He sings.) HOPE: That's the one. Better hope your pennies LOCKSTOCK: (To the audience} You'll meet the guy who runs Add up to the fee- Urine Good Company later. That there's his daughter. can't have you peeing w, BOBBY: It's quite a ways from here, ma'am. This here's the bad For ftee. part of town. you do, we'll catch you. If HOPE: So it is.

10 URINETOWN The Musical " BOBBY: But if you squint, you can just make out their headquar- ALL: ters rising above the skyline. This is Urinetown! HOPE: The gleaming tower on the hill? One restroom here at Urinetown! BOBBY: That's the one. It's unisex at Urinetown! HOPE: Gosh, it's beautiful. All by design. BOBBY: You most certainly are. LOCKSTOCK, MCQUEEN, FIPP, BARREL: HOPE: Pardon? It's the oldest story­ BOBBY: It most certainly is. Masses are oppressed; HOPE: Oh dear, I'm. late already. Thanks ever so much for the di­ Faces, clothes, and bladders rections and such. Bye! (She exits.) All distressed. BOBBY: Anytime. Rich folks get the good lift, LOCKSTOCK: (To the audience} Well, we've talked on long Poor folks get the woe. enough, I imagine. Enjoy the show. And wdcome-to Urine­ In the end, it's nothing you don't know. town (the musical)! ALL: (All sing.) You're at Urinetown! Your ticket should say "Urinetown"! WOMEN: MEN: No refunds, this is Urinetown 1 You, our humble We'll keep that dough! audience, You, OlJ:r humble You have come to audience, SOPRANOS: ALTOS: TENORS: BASSES: see You have come to This is What it's like when see This is Urinetown.' People can't pee People can't pee, People Urinetown! Here we are in It's the oldest free. People can't pee .free, can't pee free! Here we are in Urinetown.' story! Can't pee free. People Urinetown! This, this is It's the oldest First act lasts an can't pee free! This is Urinetown! story! hour. First act lasts an People Urinetown! Here we are in It's the oldest Don't assume you're hour. can't pee free, they Here we are in Urinetown! Yes, story. with fine. Don't assume you're can't pee .free in Urinetown, here we are in masses op- Best go now, there fine. yes this is Urinetown! often is a . Often is a, Urinetown! Urinetown! Urinetown! pressed! Masses, line. Often is a line. Yes, this is

12 URINETOWN The Musical Urinetown! Urinetown! Urinetown! masses OLD MAN STRONG: Bobby! Bobby, reason with the woman. I'm a Yes, this is oppressed little short this morning. tn TINY TOM: No shorter than yesterday. Unless I've grown. Urinetown! Urinetown! Urinetown! Urinetown! BOBBY: He's my pa, Ms. Pennywise. Can't he come in for free? Just this once? ALL: PENNY: Get your head out of the clouds, Bobby Strong. No one On with the show! gets in for free. (LOCKSTOCK, BARREL, MCQUEEN, and FIPP exit as PENNY shouts OUt OLD MAN STRONG: Now, Ms. Pennywise, we've all had to make instructions to THE POOR.) special ... arrangements with people in high places over the PENNY: All right, folks, you know the drill. Form a line and have years. Why not let this one be ours? yer money ready. We'll not be repeating yesterday's fiasco, and souPY suE: If Old Man Strong gets in for free, then so do I! that means you, Old Man Strong. TINY TOM: And I! (THE POOR crowd around the amenity, forming a line.) LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: And I! LITTLE SALLY: ... Four hundred and ninety-six. Four hundred ·PENNY: Quiet back there! No one's gettin' anywhere for free! and ninety-seven. Just a few more. Don't you think I have bills of my own to pay?! Don't you (McQUEEN enters, now on his way to work. LITTLE SALLY rushes to­ think I have taxes and tariffs and payoffs to meet, too?! Well, ward him, her hand stretched out in supplication.) I do! (Musical vamp for "Its a Privilege to Pee" begins.) And I LITTLE SALLY: Penny for a pee, sir? don't pay them with promises, see. I pay them with cash! Cold (MCQUEEN exits. SENATOR FIPP enters.) hard cash. Every morning you all come here. And every morn­ LITTLE SALLY: Please, sir, spare a penny for a mornmg pee, ing some of you got reasons why ya ain't gonna pay. And I'm sir? here to tell ya, ya is gonna pay! FIPP: What's that? BOBBY: But, Ms. Penny­ LITTLE SALLY: Or a nickel or a dime? PENNY: No buts, Bobby. FIPP: Out of my way, child! I've peeing of my own to tend to. OLD MAN STRONG: In the name of God, Penny, what difference LITTLE SALLY: But- could it make? (FIPP exits. LITTLE SALLY joins the crowd. At the entrance to the PENNY: What difference?JJ (Outraged, she sings.) amenity OLD MAN STRONG is arguing with PENNY.) ((Times are hard " OLD MAN STRONG: I haven't got it! "Our cash is tight. " PENNY: Then go get it! "You've got no right!" I've heard it all before. OLD MAN STRONG: C'mon, Penny, J'm good for it. 'Just this once" PENNY: That's what you said last week and I still haven't seen Is once too much, penny one. And it's Ms. Pennywise to you. For once they've onced, they'll want to once once more.

14 URINETOWN The M11sical 7'

I run the only toilet in this part oftown, you see. OLD MAN STRONG: I can't wait much longer, Bobby. There's no So, ifyou've got to go, tellin' what I might do! You've got to go through me. PENNY: You think you've got some kind ofright? Its a privilege to pee. THE POOR: \X'aters worth its weight in gold these days. Kind ofright, kind ofright! No more bathrooms like the olden days. PENNY: You come here and pay a foe You think you'll come in here and go for ftee? For the privilege to pee. THE POOR: Snag a fteebie! Twenty years we've had the drought, PENNY: And our reservoirs have all dried up. The only thing you'll get is "no" for ftee! I take my baths now in a coffee cup. THE POOR: I boil whats left ofit for tea. Negatory! And its a privilege to pee. PENNY: I'm a business gal, you see. The politiciam in their wisdom saw THE POOR: That there should be a law. Business gal, you see! The politicians taxed the toilets And made illegal PENNY: THE POOR: Public urination and defecation. I sell the privilege to pee! Its a privilege to pee!

So, come and give your coins to me. PENNY: Write your name here in the record book. The good Lord made us so we'd piss each day The authorities will want to look Until we piss away. Ifyou've been regular with me, The good Lord made sure that what goes in men Ifyou've paid the proper foe, Must soon come out again, For the privilege to pee. So you're no different, then, (THE POOR sing the refrain '1ts a privilege to pee" under the following.) From lowly me. BOBBY: But, Ms. Pennywise- THE POOR: PENNY: I said no buts, Bobby. You're a sweet-lookin' boy and I Me, likes to keep you around, but this man ain't comin' in without Lowly me, payin'. Not this time. Lowly me,

"' URINETOWN Tha Musical 17 Lowly me, LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: He's peein' right there on the pave- Lowly me! ment, he is! TINY TOM: If he's go in', then I'm go in'! _BOBBY: But, Ms. Pennywise- (OFFICERS LOCKSTOCK BARREL OLD MAN STRONG: That's enough, Bobby. and enter.) LOCKSTOCK: PENNY: Oh no, you're not! And I think I'll charge you twice, BARREL: All right, then! Make way! WCKSTOCK: OLD MAN STRONG: Make way, damn you! Make way! OLD MAN STRONG: Ahhh. That's better. No need to jeopardize your position. BARREL: So, if it ain't Old Man Strong. PENNY: Or better yet, have you arrested OLD MAN STRONG: The same. LOCKSTOCK: Is this your doing, Strong? OLD MAN STRONG: I'm through with all this, you see. OLD MAN STRONG: It is. PENNY: Since you prefer the law gets tested LOCKSTOCK: Seize him! (BARREL seizes OLD MAN STRONG.) OLD MAN STRONG: Serapin' cash three times a day. THE POOR: PENNY: {Gasp.} And in Urinetown you'll see LOCKSTOCK: You've done a terrible thing here today, Strong. OLD MAN STRONG: I did what I thought was necessary. OLD MAN STRONG: Crazy with the nitrates half the time. PENNY: Grab a mop, Bobby. Never thought I'd live to see the day. PENNY: Why its dumb to fight with me LOCKSTOCK: Breaking the Public Health Act is an exiling of- . OLD MAN STRONG: It's no way to live, I tells ya! No way to live! fense, Strong . _...... PENNY: BARREL: Quite exiling. For the privilege to pee! OLD MAN STRONG: What if it is? I feel better now, and that's all I cares about. POOR: Wah! Wah! BOBBY: Oh, Pa. LOCKSTOCK: Always knew we'd get you m the end, Joseph PENNY AND POOR: Wah! Strong. Take him away! (BARREL drags OLD MAN STRONG away.) (oLD MAN STRONG finds a wall and undoes his pants to pee.) OLD MAN STRONG: Bobby! BOBBY: Pa! Pa, what are ya doin'?! Have ya lost your mind?! BOBBY: Pa! OLD MAN STRONG: More than that, boy! A whole lot more than that! (He starts peeing. A police whistle is heard in the dis­ OLD MAN STRONG: Don't forget me, Bobby! tance.) BOBBY: I won't, Pa! OLD MAN STRONG: And tell yer mother ... tell yer mother that I SOUPY SUE: Looky there! love her! ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: It's Old Man Strong! He ain't waitin'!

The Musical 19 URINETOWN BOBBY: I will, Pa! I will! Scene 2 OLD MAN STRONG: Remember me, boys! Oh God, what have I done?! Remember me! The executive offices of Urine Good Company. CALDWEll B. CLAD­ WELL, MR. MCQUEEN SENATOR FIPP. (They exit. LOCKSTOCK sings.) with at his side, is meeting with LOCKSTOCK: Remember, Bobby, what became ofhim. FIPP: Where's my dough?! CLADWELL: THE POOR: Isn't that what we're all asking ourselves, Senator? Remember! Where's my dough? From the cop walking his beat to the little LOCKSTOCK: baby asleep in his mother's arms, we're all asking the same How he indulged a whim. question: Where's my dough? And by dough, of course, I THE POOR: mean money. Remember! FIPP: I made my speech! Where's my dough?! CLADWELL: LOCKSTOCK: Oh, there'll be plenty of dough for everyone, Sena­ Remember how he made a mockery. tor, once the new fee hikes breeze through the Legislature. He shunned the crockery. FIPP: I was hoping to wait for the vote during my latest fact­ Off to the dockery! finding mission-to Rio! Wouldn't want to be around once Don't be like him. the new fee hikes breeze through. (THE POOR sing the refrain "Don't be like him" under the following.) CLADWELL: You think I've gone too far this time, don't you, Fipp? BOBBY: "What became of him"? What do you mean by that? (HOPE enters.} FIPP: LOCKSTOCK: Just keep your head out of the clouds, that's all I'm It's a powder keg out there, Cladwell. This time I think it's saying. Good day. (He exits.} gonna blow! PENNY: All right, who's ready to pay?! HOPE: Daddy? souPY suE: It's my last few dollars, but I'll pay. CLADWELL, FIPP, AND MCQUEEN: Whaa-?! TINY TOM: Me, too! CLADWELL: Hope darling, I thought you'd never get here! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Me, too! (They embrace.) HOPE: souPY SUE: We'll all pay, Bobby Strong! Always and forever, just Sorry I'm late, Daddy. I left just as soon as my exams were so long as you keep lettin' us pay! finished. BOBBY: Oh, Pa! What's to become of you? CLADWELL: How's everything, dear? PENNY: Back to work, then, Bobby! The morning rush is on! HOPE: Fine, Daddy. Just fine. It feels great to be done with school. Finally. CLADWELL: You see there, Mister McQueen! Beautiful, big­ hearted, and now with a head filled with the best stuff money can buy.

The Musical 21 20 URINETOWN McQUEEN: Well, if the stuff in her head is nearly as big as the GLADWELL: Staff, this here's my daughter-and our newest stuff in her heart, I'm sure she'll be running this company in fax/copy girl-Hope Cladwell. Hope Cladwell, the good no time. (MCQUEEN laughs. CLADWELL doesn't.) people of Urine Good Company, or UGC, as it's known for CLADWELL: That'll be all, Mister McQueen. short. MCQUEEN: Yes, of course. HOPE: Hello, everybody! _(He exits. FIPP approaches HOPE.) UGG STAFF: Hello, Hope! FIPP: Well, I'll be. Hope Cladwell, and all grown up, too. GLADWELL: Say a few words, Hope darling. HOPE: Hello, Senator. HOPE: Well ... uh ... it's a great company and I hope to help FIPP: Come to join your father's little operation? you make it even greater. HOPE: It's just a fax/copy position, of course. First day. (All applaud) FIPP: A fax/copy girl, huh? (Taking her hand) Well, your father GLADWELL: Well, that's absolutely right, Hope dear, absolutely mentioned he was bringing on a new fax /copy girl. He ne­ right. For you see, ladies and gentlemen, twenty years ago we glected, however, to mention how beautiful she'd be. You'd be. came to the people of this community with a simple proposi­ You're so beautiful. Even as a little girl I always thought- tion: Look the other way while we run this company the way CLADWELL: That's enough, Fipp. we see fit, and we will keep the pee off the street and the wa­ FIPP: Yes, of course. ter in the ground. Hope here has come to join our little oper­ CLADWELL: Well, we won't keep you, Senator; it's a big day. I'm ation, to help us keep that promise, so promise me you'll treat sure you'll have your hands full on the floor of the Legislature, her like the Cladwell she is, for one day (Vamp for ''Mister what with the fee-hike vote and all. Cladwell" begins.) she may be standing in the shoes you see me FIPP: Oh, they'll be full, Clad well. And. by this time tomorrow I wearing today, the shoes I wore when I made that promise fully expect them to be full of cash. those many years ago. (He sings.) CLADWELL: Oh, they'll be full of cash, Senator. We'll all be full of I saw gray skies, foreboding and cold! cash, provided the vote comes through. I saw gray skies and made them rain gold! FIPP: Oh, the vote will come through, Cladwell. It'll come Now those skies aren't so bleak to behold! through just as long as you come through with the cash. They're still gray, CLADWELL: No worries there, Senator. Once the vote comes But they pay through, there'll be nothing else to come through but the cash. For your sal'ries tenfold! FIPP: And no need to worry about the vote-­ GLADWELL: Fipp! I think we understand each other. I took this town that formerly stank, FIPP: Yes. Well. Goodbye. (He exits.) I took this town and made it smell swank! CLADWELL: Let's meet the staff. Staff! I made flushing mean flush at the bank! ·- (ucc STAFF enters.) I'm the man

22 URINETOWN The Musical 23 With the plan, MCQUEEN: And so whom should you thank? All those coins that we take ftom the throng MCQUEEN: End up here where those coins all belong. Whom? Lots ofcoins make our company strong! CHORUS: CLADWELL: Mister Cladwell, Charging fees we're so thankfol As we please For that bankfol ofdough! Is our right--its not wrong! Youre a toreador, MCQUEEN: And its cash that you gore! we're not greedy, as some make us seem. Could we hope for much more? we need fonds for our big research team. we really doubt it! DR. BILLEAUX: CLADWELL: Men in labcoats and test tubes with steam! You may be right there! CLADWELL AND MCQUEEN: CHORUS: What it shows Mister Cladwell, No one knows) Youve got riches, But, hey. still we can dream! Which is just what we need! MCQUEEN: Of! we say

Hail to you, the duke ofthe ducats! CHORUS: HOPE: CLADWELL: Mister Cladwell, Da- I can bring in bucks by the buckets! Finding answers, Da, da, da, da, Daddy! CHORUS: Curing cancers ofdoubt! You're the master, you're making money! Thats my dad! CLADWELL: Your ambitions are high, Faster still than bees making honey! But you're humble as pie! CHORUS: What a wonderfol guy! Youre Mister Cladwell! we simply love you! HOPE: Gosh, I never realized large, monopolizing corporations

could be such a force for good in the world. CLADWELL: CLADWELL: Few do. Youre making me blush now!

24 URINETOWN The Musical 25 CHORUS: HOPE: Gosh, Daddy, they certainly do seem to adore you. So Doodle-oodle-ooo! why do I feel so conflicted? Doodle-oodle-ooo! CLADWELL: Nonsense. Did I send you to the Most Expensive Doodle-oodle­ University in the World to teach you how to feel conflicted, or Oodle-oodle­ to learn how to manipulate great masses of people? Oodle-oodle­ HOPE: To learn how to manipulate great masses of people, Oodle-oodle! Daddy. CLADWELL: Which is exactly what we'll do. Now get faxing! WOMEN: MEN: HOPE: And copying! Boom! CLADWELL: And-welcome home. Boom! Boom! Boom! Scene 3

CHORUS: Night. A street corner. LITTLE SALLY counts her pennies. OFFICER Boom! LOCKSTOCK enters. Mister Cladwell,

You re so godly, LITTLE SALLY: ... Five hundred and thirty-seven, five hundred Oddly perftct and right! and thirty-eight, just a few more ... MEN: WCKSTOCK: Well hello there, Little Sally. Awfully late for a You are continental, yet unpretentious! little girl to be out and about. Especially on a night like WOMEN: tonight. Fancy-free, yet so conscientious! LITTLE SALLY: Oh. Just tryin' to scrape together a few coins be­ MEN: fore the late-night rush is all. Got one to spare? Wise but trendy, tough as a mountain! LOCKSTOCK: Sure, Little Sally. I'm in a good mood tonight. (He CHORUS: tosses her a coin.) Goodness flows from you like a fountain! LITTLE SALLY: Gee, thanks. (She squirrels the coin away.) Say, Of­ You're Mister, you're Mister ficer Lockstock, I was thinkin'. We don't spend much time on CLADWELL: hydraulics, do we? Clad well! LOCKSTOCK: Hydraulics, Little Sally? CHORUS: LITTLE SALLY: You know, hydraulics. Hydration. Irrigation. Or Cladwell! just plain old laundry. Seems to me that with all the talk of

2& URINETOWN The Musical 27 water shortage and drought and whatnot, we might spend (Vamp begim for "Cop Song.') some time on those things, too. Mter all, a dry spell would af­ LOCKSTOCK: If there's one thing I've learned in my years enforc­ fect hydraulics, too, you know. ing the laws of this ciry, it's that the journey down to Urine­ LOCKSTOCK: Why, sure it would, Little Sally. But ... How shall town offers no surprises. Not even from the very toughest I put it? Sometimes-in a musical-it's better to focus on one amongst us. On that journey expect only the expected. (He big thing rather than a lot of little things. The audience tends sings.) to be much happier that way. And it's easier to write. Its a hard, cold tumble ofa journey, (LITTLE SALLY thinks this over.) Worthy ofa gurney, a bumble down, LITTLE SALLY: One big thing, huh? A slapped foce, smacked with a mace, LOCKSTOCK: That's right, Little Sally. Certain to debase, is our stumble down. LITTLE SALLY: Oh. (Pause.) Then why not hydraulics? LOCKSTOCK: (Chuckles.) Run along, then, Little Sally. Wouldn't It's a path that leads you only one place, want you to miss last call. Ms. Pennywise won't hold the gate Horrible to retrace, a crumble down. forever, you know. A hard, cold tumble ofa tourney, LITTLE SALLY: Oh, yeah, right. Thanks for the coin! Bye! jumble ofa journey to Urinetown. (She hurries off BARREL enters, carrying a shovel and a mop.) LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: BARREL: What a night. julie Cassidy LOCKSTOCK: Everything cleaned up all right, Mister Barrel? Went to a field behind a tree, BARREL: Sure, same as always. Did you hear him scream, though, Saw there was no one who could see Mister Lockstock? LOCKSTOCK: LOCKSTOCK: Old Man Strong? Her pee BARREL: All the way down to Urinetown. BARREL: LOCKSTOCK: Oh yes, I heard him, Mister Barrel. But then, they But me! all seem to scream in the end now, don't they? As their long LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: journey into "exile" comes to a close and the spires of Urine­ And jacob Rosenbloom town peek above the horiwn? They do scream then, Mister Thought he was safe up in his room, Barrel. They most certainly do. Didn't know the jars he kept up there (They laugh.) Would obligate a trip to a urine tomb! BARREL: I suppose I thought he might be different, somehow. (More COPS enter.) LOCKSTOCK: Different? LOCKSTOCK: BARREL: Old Man Strong. Always seemed a bit tougher than the There are those who think our methods vicious- rest. I was hoping he might ... I don't know ... surprise us, BARREL: somehow. Overly malicious-

28 URINETOWN The Musical 28 LOCKSTOCK: Soon learned power ofthe truncheon. A bunch ofbrutes. But its we who gather for the people­ Organize a function, king to pawn. BARREL: So ifpeace is what you're after, Tavern to the steeple­ Urinetowns the rafter to hang it on. LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: Lawful fruits! GIRL COP 1: LOCKSTOCK: julie Cassidy- Our task: bring a little order­ BARREL: BOY COP 1: BOY COP 2: Swindle out a hoarder­ jacob Rosenbloom- LOCKSTOCK: Roger From what he loots. As the book says, "Certainly a season"­ jacob Rosenbloom- Roosevelt- BARREL: Trample out a treason­ LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: BOY COP J: GIRL COP 1, ALL: julie With hobnail boots! joseph Cassidy- Roger Roosevelt Don't be like them! Old Man Strong- Kept a cup below his belt, Cup ran over when he knelt. LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: GIRL COPS: BOY COPS: LOCKSTOCK: Don't be like them! Don't be like them! He smelt-- Don't be like them! Don't be like them! Don't be like them! BARREL: Don't be like them! Don't be like them! Don't be like them! We dealt. ALL: LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: GIRL COPS: BOY COPS: And joseph "Old Man" Strong Its a hard, cold Held his pee for much too long, Tumble ofa journey, Its a hard, cold Hoped his son might bail him out. Worthy ofa gurney, Tumble ofa journey, Its a hard, cold His guess was good but also wrong! · A bumble down, Worthy ofa gurney, Tumble ofa journey, LOCKSTOCK: A slapped foce, A bumble down, Worthy ofa gurney, Years past all lived in a jungle, Smacked with a mace, A slapped foce, A bumble down, Scooping out a bungle, natures bowl. Certain to debase, Smacked with a mace, A slapped foce, Lift ofconstant deprivation, Is our stumble down. Certain to debase. Smacked with a Certain aggravation took its toll. mace.

30 URINETOWN The Musical a• (LOCKSTOCK takes HOPES hand.) ALL: LOCKSTOCK: I must say, Ms. Cladwell, your father mentioned Its a path that leads you only one place, the size and purity of your heart. He neglected, however, to Horrible to retrace, a crumble down, mention the size and purity of your beauty. (He kisses her A hard, cold tumble ofa tourney, hand.) fumble ofa journey to Urinetown! HOPE: Does beauty have a size, Officer? WCKSTOCK: Off you go, then, boys. And happy hunting. LOCKSTOCK: In some countries. (The COPS scramble off LOCKSTOCK and BARREL linger.) (BOBBY STRONG enters, umeen.) 'BARREL: Hm ... yes. So, have you made plans for your journey LOCKSTOCK: I'd take care on these streets late at night, Ms. Clad­ yet? well. There's no telling what some people wouldn't do for a LOCKSTOCK: To Urinetown?! few coins. BARREL: To Rio, of course. BARREL: Especially these days, what with the new fee hikes and all. LOCKSTOCK: Oh. Yes. Rio. Well, I had to squeeze Cladwell a bit HOPE: Oh, I'm not afraid of people, Officers. tighter than usual for our monthly payoffs, extortion fees, LOCKSTOCK: Oh, no? money bribes, and such. But- HOPE: Not really. Everyone has a heart, you see. As long as you (HOPE enters.) know that you need never fear a soul. BARREL: Caution, Mister Lockstock. It would seem we're no LOCKSTOCK: Everyone? longer alone. HOPE: Everyone. LOCKSTOCK: Well, I'll be. BARREL: Even criminals? BARREL: If I'm not mistaken, that there's his daughter. HOPE: Even criminals. LOCKSTOCK: So it is. And all grown up, too. (To HOPE) Ms. BOBBY: Even policemen? Cladwell! A little late for you to be out, don't you think? LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: Whaa-?! HOPE: Oh, hello, Officers. BARREL: Bobby Strong! LOCKSTOCK: If I didn't know better, I'd say you were on a late­ LOCKSTOCK: Out a bit late, don't you think? night- behind- the-bushes- to- relieve- yourself- for- free kind of BOBBY: Out late taking care of another late-night rush is all. walk. There's talk of more fee hikes, people are getting edgy. HOPE: Oh no, Officers. I'm just coming home from work. First LOCKSTOCK: Are they? Well, I'm glad to hear you were otherwise day. engaged. Wouldn't want to pur you under suspicion for taking BARREL: Long hours. a late-night-behind-the-bushes-- LOCKSTOCK: Just like US. BOBBY: I don't need to do that anymore, Officers. Not while I HOPE: There's some kind of big vote down at the Legislature work for Penny, I don't. tonight. Plenty of faxing to do. BARREL: But you still need to keep your head out of the douds BARREL: And copying, I imagine. now, don't you? HOPE: Oh yes. And copying.

The Musical 33 32 URINETOWN BOBBY: What do you mean by that? OLD MAN STRONG: Bobby! Bobby, reason with the woman! I'm a LOCKSTOCK: What he means is, you're a good boy, Bobby little short this morning! Strong. See that you don't end up like your father. TINY TOM: No shorter than yesterday. Unless I've grown. BOBBY: And how did my father end up? (They disappear.) (Pause.) BOBBY: Or, rather, something I didn't do. LOCKSTOCK: Well, we're off. Our work's never done. Good night. HOPE: If it feels cold, then it must still be there, don't you think? HOPE: Good night, Officers. BOBBY: Unless there's a vacuum where it used to be. BARREL: Good night, Bobby. HOPE: A vacuum? In your chest? It sounds so implausible. (They exit.) BOBBY: I did something wrong this morning is all I'm trying to ./r-HOPE: You were rather brave with them. say. I can't seem to get it out of my head . BOBBY: I don't care for policemen. Not those two, anyway. HOPE: The vacuum? HOPE: Policemen protect the peace. BOBBY: My action. I let someone down that I love dearly. I feel BOBBY: Do they? real bad about it. HOPE: Usually. HOPE: Well, maybe that's nature's way of telling you that now's (Pause.) the time to lift someone up? BOBBY: Didn't I see you down by the amenity this morning? BOBBY: Really? HOPE: That was me. I was rushing off to work, first day. HOPE: Sure. Do you think you'd be feeling as bad as you do if BOBBY: Find your way all right? you didn't have a heart? HOPE: The gleaming tower on the hill? Couldn't miss it. (Musical vamp begins for "Follow Your Heart. ') BOBBY: Beautiful. BOBBY: I don't know. I suppose not. HOPE: It's rather shiny, that's true enough. HOPE: Of course you wouldn't. Because then you'd be dead. (She (Pause.) sings.) BOBBY: Did you mean what you said to those policemen? About When darkness surrounds you everyone having a heart? And you lose your way, HOPE: Well, sure I did. You have your own compass BOBBY: Because . . . well, because mme feels awful cold just That turns night to day, now. And its even with you HOPE: Cold? Before you depart. BOBBY: Or empty. One of the two. Be still, hear it beating, HOPE: Not because of me, I hope? ItS leading you. BOBBY: Oh no. Because of something I did. Follow your heart. (The ghost of OLD MAN STRONG and TINY TOM appear in the dis­ BOBBY: Follow my heart? But to where? tance.) HOPE: To wherever your heart tells you to go.

34 URINETOWN Tho Musical 3& BOBBY: Even ... (He looks around.) ... there? Follow, someone is waiting there, HOPE: Even to the clouds, if that's what your heart commands. Someone who shares all your hopes What's it saying now? And your joys. BOBBY: I don't know. I don't know how to listen to my heart. "Someone is waiting there''? Why, my heart was saying those (Music fades.) exact words just the other day. HOPE: You have to listen carefully. Here, let me try. (She puts her BOBBY: It was? ear to BOBBYs chest.) HOPE: Sure it was. "Squalor and noise," "hopes and joys." It was BOBBY: Do you- telling me about all those things. HOPE: Sshh! (Music begins again.) Ah, there it is. It's saying (She BOBBY: I didn't know two hearrs could speak as one. sings.) HOPE: I didn't either. Until now. Here, listen. we all want a world (She brings BOBBY s ear to her chest. He sings.) Filled with peace and with joy, BOBBY: With plenty ofwater for each girl and boy. Someday I'll meet someone That bright, shining world Whose heart joins with mine, Is just waiting to start. Aortas and arteries all intertwined. No meanness or sorrow, They'll beat so much stronger just cleanness tomorrow, Than they could apart. Ifonly you follow your heart. Eight chambers ofmuscle to hustle You see there? Even your heart knows you should follow your heart. The love in our heart. BOBBY: "Peace and joy." "Plenty of water." I guess I do want BOBBY AND HOPE: those things. Love is kind and considerate, HOPE: There's something else your heart was saying. Maybe Love is peacefol and fair. something I shouldn't have heard. Love can creep up so suddenly­ BOBBY: There was? When you least think ofit, HOPE: I think so. It was barely audible, but I definitely heard Your love is there. something. BOBBY: Well? What was it? we all want a world HOPE: Let me try again, maybe I can make it out this time. (She Filled with peace and with joy, listens. Music begins again.) There it is. So faint ... it's saying With plenty ofjustice (She sings.) For each girl and boy. Follow, into the open air, That bright, shining world Far from squalor and noise. Is just waiting to start.

38 URINETOWN The Musical 37 No anger or badness, oozed out slowly, until it bursts forth in one mighty cathartic just laughter and gladness, moment! Somewhere in Act Two. With everybody singing, Ifonly I follow your heart. and things like that. (HOPE extends her hand.) (Pause.) HOPE: Well, good night ... LITTLE SALLY: Oh, I get it. (BOBBY takes it.) (Scene-change music.) BOBBY: Bobby. Bobby Strong. (He pulls her close to him.) wcKSTOCK: Well, I should be going. It's time for the next scene. HOPE: Good night, Bobby Strong. LITTLE SALLY: The next morning at the amenity, when the new (They kiss.) fee hikes are announced? BOBBY: And good night . , , LOCKSTOCK: That's the one. So long for now, Little Sally. And HOPE: Hope. keep your head down. BOBBY: Good night, Hope. I won't forget what you said, about (He exits. Segue into .. .) the clouds and my heart. HOPE: And I won't forget what you said, about the laughter and the gladness. Scene 4 (He turm to go. LOCKSTOCK and LITTLE SALLY enter, unseen.) HOPE: Wait a minute, when can I see you again? The poorest, filthiest urinal in town. BOBBY enters as McQUEEN con­ BOBBY: In this darkness I'm afraid you can't see me at all. But cludes an announcement he is delivering to THE POOR. a bright, shining world is waiting to start, I can feel it. Come to Amenity Number Nine tomorrow. I'll show it to you. (He exits.) MCQUEEN: And so with this piece of paper the UGC awards LITTLE SALLY: She loves him, doesn't she, Officer Lockstock? Amenity Number Nine the first of our new and entirely legal WCKSTOCK: Sure, she does, Little Sally. He's the hero of the fee hikes, which we hope you all will honor and enjoy. show, she has to love him. THE POOR: Enjoy?!/Legal?!/Etc. (HOPE exits.) MCQUEEN: Of course, no one knows better than the good people LITTLE SALLY: Yeah. Everyone loves Bobby Strong. (Pause.) at Urine Good Company how difficult times are, but research What's it like, Officer Lockstock? into finding the long-term solutions we need is expensive. So, LOCKSTOCK: What's what like, Little Sally? for the time being, our decision is firm and we look forward to LITTLE SALLY: U rinetown. going to Rio with our new profits. (Pause.) I mean, we look LOCKSTOCK: Oh, I can't tell you that, Little Sally. forward to finding lasting solutions ... and things like that. LITTLE SALLY: Why not? Good luck, Ms. Pennywise, see you in . . . well, you know LOCKSTOCK: Because it's a secret, that's why. Its power depends where. (He exits.} on mystery. I can't just blurt it out, like "There is no Urine­ TINY TOM: You can't do this to us, Ms. Pennywise! It'll be off to town! We just kill people!" Oh no. The information must be Urinetown for the lot of us sooner or later if you do!

38 URINETOWN The Musical 39 PENNY: And it'll be off to Urinetown for me if I don't. Now get PENNY: The same as it's always been. in line and have your money ready-the new fee-hike money, BOBBY: that is! As the world turns to foce the sun and start another day, BOBBY: Ms. Pennywise! It suddenly PENNY: Bobby Strong! Where the hell have you been?! Occurs to me BOBBY: Sorry I'm late, Ms. Pennywise. I was up all night think­ That maybe we can find another way. ing, is all. Look at the sky, PENNY: Up all night thinking, is it?! You work here now, Bobby, Full ofhope and promise. you don't need to go in the bushes anymore. It's a shining ideal. BOBBY: I wasn't- How I reel PENNY: Like father, like son, that's what I say. Now let's get to When I look at the sky. work. PENNY: Now, who's first? BOBBY: But it was about my father that I was thinking, Ms. Pen­ JOSEPHINE STRONG: I am! nywise. About what happened to him yesterday. About what's BOBBY: Ma! happening to all of us. PENNY: We'll take your fee now, Mrs. Strong. The improved fee, PENNY: He broke tbe law yesterday, Bobby, and that's the end that is. of it. BOBBY: BOBBY: But what if the law is wrong? Daily we make them pay their nickels, dimes, and quarters­ (Pause.) JOSEPHINE: But this is all I have, Ms. Pennywise. PENNY: What did you say? BOBBY: BOBBY: I said, what if the law is wrong, Ms. Pennywise?! What if Daily we break them 'cause we have to follow orders. all this is wrong?! LITTLE SALLY: Haven't you enough, Mrs. Strong? PENNY: Wrong?! You've got a sweet-lookin' head, Bobby, a sweet­ BOBBY: lookin' head! (Vamp begins for ''Look at the Sky.') But you keep And we keep filling moneybags with broken lives and dreams, it up there in tbe clouds day after day after day, and .it's gotta But what's it for? come down from there. You hear me?! Get that head out of I can't ignore tbe clouds, Bobby Strong! You get it out of the clouds! These black, immoral profit-making schemes. (She returns to address THE POOR. BOBBY sings.) BOBBY: Look at the sky, Offin the distance there's a beautifUl horizon­ High above this madness. PENNY: All right, folks, you know the drill. Here below feel our shame. BOBBY: It must stop in the name Gleaming and radiant, it's what 111 keep my eyes on- Ojthesky.

41 40 URINETOWN The Musical JOSEPHINE: Here's all I have, Bobby. Is it enough? THE POOR: BOBBY: You hold on to that money, Ma. Where the peoples allegiance must go! JOSEPHINE: Really? BOBBY: Tell me where! PENNY: The fee is the law, Bobby Strong. She'll abide by it or she'll join her husband. THE POOR: BOBBY: BOBBY: And what if there was a new law in town, Ms. Pennywise? Look at the sky! A new law that didn't come from any voting process or elected Look at the sky! body or process of judicial review, but a brand-new law that That's our inspiration! came from an organ. That's right, a muscular, blood-pumping Look at the sky! organ. (He thumps his chest.) Like this one. Right here . . ./PENNY: A muscular organ? THE POOR: BOBBY: Can't you see it, Ms. Pennywise? Well, if this one's too JXecan win small for you, why not try this one on for size?! (He directs her Ifwe try. to look at the sky.) we begin PENNY: It's ... it's blinding me! When we wok at the sky! BOBBY: PENNY: Oh, Bobby, what's to become of you? What's to become Look at the sky! of us all?! (She exits.) Theres a great big heart there! Theres a heart THE POOR: BOBBY: In the sky. Look at the sky, There just is. Offin the distance Don't ask why- Standard ofthe people. There's a beautiful horizon. Its the sky!

PENNY: Don't do this, Bobby. You'll regret it. THE POOR: BOBBY: I don't think so. C'mon, Ma. This one's on the house. It's a banner so wide, For everyone! Forever! Flying proudly with pride THE POOR: Hooray! In the sky- SOUPY SUE: BOBBY; Your heart knows all things great and true. In the sky­ TINY TOM: THE POOR! The things mere brains can never know! In the sky! JOSEPHINE: Your heart points to the great, big blue-

42 43 URINETOWN The Musical Scene 5 PENNY: Caldwell. (Musical sting.) Long time, no see. CLADWELL: Ms. Pennywise. (Another musical sting.) The offices of Urine Good Company. CLADWELL conftrs with FIPP. (PENNY and CLADWELL share a long, meaningfollook.) McQUEEN: Anyway ... it's about Public Amenity Number Nine, CLADWELL: You'll be off to Rio, then, I imagine? sir. The people there have rioted. FIPP: Already got my ticket. CLADWELL: Rioted?! CLADWELL: Good work on the floor of the Legislature, Fipp. It PENNY: They're peeing for free, Caldwell. I tried to stop them. was touch-and-go there for a while, I understand. LOCKSTOCK: The assistant custodian is refusing to take people's FIPP: Well, your "Beaches of Rio" slide show changed their minds money, sir. A young man by the name of Bobby Strong. soon enough. Just like it changed my mind those many years HOPE: Bobby Strong? ago. God, I wish I'd never met you, Caldwell B. Cladwell. wcKSTOCK: They've rescinded the Public Health Act. (HOPE enters carrying a stack ofpapers.) McQUEEN: And the Water Preservation Act. HOPE: Sorry to interrupt, Daddy. I just wanted to make sure you FIPP: Can they do that?! got your morning faxes. MCQUEEN: Strictly symbolic, sir. The crowd gathered there is an CLADWELL: Why, Hope, you're absolutely glowing! unthinkably small percentage of the population as a whole. FIPP: It would seem that office work agrees with her. What with HOPE: What's happening, Daddy? I don't understand. the faxing and all. CLADWELL: I wouldn't expect a good and pure heart like yours to CLADWELL: And the copying. understand. FIPP: Oh yes. The copying. You're a good girl, Hope Cladwell. I wcKSTOCK: Mister Barrel and I are ready, Mister Cladwell. Just used to be one. Before I met your father. give the word. HOPE: A good girl? FIPP: What did I tell you, Cladwell? It's a powder keg out there, FIPP: You heard me. (He pulls a wad of bills from his pocket and and I have a very important plane to catch! Excuse me. (He counts quietly to himself) ... Six hundred and twenty-two. Six turns to go.) hundred and twenty-three. Just a few more. CLADWELL: Fipp! (BARREL blocks his way.) You're not going any­ HOPE: Daddy? Can I ask you a question? where. Not until we nip this unpleasantness in the bud. CLADWELL: Sure, Hope darling. What is it? HOPE:" Nip? How so? HOPE: Do you believe in love? cLADWELL: You're a Cladwell, Hope. What would yoLL do if the (Pause.) very foundation of your life's work were threatened by the CLADWELL: Love? Why do you ask? rabble-rousing son of a convicted criminal? HOPE: Just wondering. I met this boy, you see­ HOPE: Look deep into his heart and try to understand what (McQUEEN, LOCKSTOCK, and PENNY enter.) made it pound so angrily. McQUEEN: Sorry to interrupt, Mister Cladwell. We've got a little CLADWELL: Angry, you say?! No one gets angry at me! Not with­ problem. out a beating!

4& 44 URINETOWN The Musical /

HOPE: A beating? Oh, Daddy, beating people is wrong. A little bunny at a tollbooth. CLADWELL: Life is a beating! The sooner you learn that, the He needs a measly fifty cents. better. Our little bunny didn't plan ahead. HOPE: Then life is wrong. Poor bunny simply doesn't have the bread! CLADWELL: Embrace it. I have. He begs for mercy, but gets jail instead. HOPE: Life should be beautiful. Hasenpfeffer's in the air CLADWELL: Life is many things. Look deeper, you'll see it. I do. As the bunny gets the chair! (Vamp for "Don't Be the Bunny" begins.) I see it everywhere. See the moral, people? (He sings.) UGC STAFF: Clear as day, boss! A little bunny in the meadow CLADWELL: Is nibbling grass without a care. Don't be the bunny. Hes so delightfUl as he hops for you. Don't be the dope. You say; "Hi, Bunny; "and he stops for you. Don't be the loser. You pull your trigger and he drops for you. You're much better than that, Hope! Goodbye, Bunny-boo; You're born to pow'r. Hello, rabbit stew! Youre in the money! Get me, boys? Advice to you- UGC STAFF; You tell 'em, boss! MCQUEBN AND FIPP: CLADWELL: In re: the bunny­ Don't be the bunny. CLADWELL; Don't be the stew. Don't be the bunny! Don't be the dinner. HOPE: A little bunny at a tollbooth? You have better things to do. CLADWELL: You heard me. It ain't no joke. HOPE: But, Daddy, bunnies don't drive cars. Thats why its fonny. CLADWELL: Oh, don't they?! So take your cue: HOPE: No, actually, I don't think they do. Don't be the bunny. CLADWELL: Live long enough, Hope darling, you see ... many Don't be the bunny. things. HOPE: But, Daddy, we're talking about people, not animals. HOPE: Even a daughter doubting her father? CLADWELL: People are animals, Hope darling. CLADWELL: HOPE: Animals with huge incisors and big floppy feet? A little bunny in a shoe box. CLADWELL: Look closely, you'll see them. I do. I see them ... He thinks hes found a brand-new home. everywhere. (He sings.) So snug and cozy on your closet floor,

48 URINETOWN The Musical 47 And then you open up your closet door. JOSEPHINE: A busy day so far. Busiest on record, if your books Now whats that bunny in my closet for? are right. How's rhe urinal holding out? With a mallet and some clippers, BOBBY: A little spillage, nothing to be concerned about. The You find out: new bunny slippers! people are happy, that's the main thing. Grasp the message, staff? (A police whistle is heard in the distance.) UGC STAFF: Right behind you, boss! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Police! CLADWELL AND STAFF: ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: Run! Don't be the bunny. BOBBY: Wait! Wait! Please, everyone, remain calm! Don't be the shoe. (The COPS enter with CLADWELL, MCQUEEN, FIPP, PENNY, and You don't get stepped on. HOPE in tow. They make their way to the gate.) CLADWELL: LOCKSTOCK: It'll take a lot of explaining to keep us calm, Bobby No, the one who steps is you! Strong. CLADWELL AND STAFF: BOBBY: We've taken control of rhis amenity, Officers. The people You're stepping up here pee for free. To where its sunny. CLADWELL: That's my amenity, Officers. I want all of these peo- Step on the poor! ple taken away. Don't be the bunny! (LITTLE SALLY makes her way through the rebel mob to approach Don't be the bunny! LOCKSTOCK.) With, 'wah, wah, wah, wah! LITTLE SALLY: Officer Lockstock, what's happening? CLADWELL: All right, everybody, get yourselves together! It's time LOCKSTOCK: Why, it's the Act One finale, Little Sally. This is we bagged ourselves a few rabbits! Let's go! where Cladwell arrives to snuff out the uprising. It's a big (All exit.) song-and-dance number involving the entire cast. LITTLE SALLY: Snuff out the uprising? But what about Bobby's Scene 6 dreams? LOCKSTOCK: Well now, Little Sally, dreams only come true in The poorest, filthiest urinal in town. BOBBY, with JOSEPHINE's help, is happy musicals-and a few Hollywood movies-and this cer­ now in charge. THE POOR push eagerly toward the Amenitys entrance. tainly isn't either one of those. No, dreams are meant to be crushed. It's nature's way. BOBBY: One at a time! One at a time! Everyone will get a LITTLE SALLY: This may not be a happy musical, Officer Lock­ turn! stock, but it's still a musical. And when a little girl has been souPY suE: Here's some cash, Bobby. Just for you. given as many lines as I have, there's still hope for dreams! (She BOBBY: Keep your cash, friend. And relieve yourself in happi­ scrambles back to the mob.) ness. HOPE: Bobby?!

48 URINETDWN Tile Musical 48 BOBBY: Hope?! Don't give us tomorrow, HOPE: What are you doing, Bobby?! I told you to follow your just give us today! heart, not seize an amenity! THE POOR! BOBBY: I did follow my heart, Hope. Thanks to you. Freel PENNY: The amenity won't take much more of this upnsmg, People are free! Caldwell. Bobby's a sweet boy, but not sweet enough to How can a foe sweeten that spillage, not by a long shot. Enslave us? BOBBY: The amenity will take as much as it has to, Ms. Penny­ See wise. The days of deprivation are over for these people. How we can be THE POOR: Hooray! Free from the chains CLADWELL: The days of deprivation have just begun if this mad­ He gave us! ness continues a moment longer. THE POOR: Ooooo! We're suffiring now /BOBBY: Sure, Mister Cladwell, that's what you've been saying fur Such lives ofsorrow! twenty years. And fur twenty years we've waited for the long-term Don't give us tomorrow, solutions that never came. Well, we're done waiting, you see, for a just give us today! new day has dawned today. A day of hope and happiness (Musi­ BOBBY: cal vamp begins.) when the idea of human dignity is more than From ev'ry hill, just a forgotten notion, but a living, breathing reality. A day-this Ev'ry steeple, day-when the people pee for free, because the people are free! Ring out the anthem THE POOR: Hooray! Ofthe people, BOBBY: (Sings.) Making a new way, Free! Breaking the clouds ofgray, People are free! 'losing oftoday! How can a foe BOBBY ,AND THE POOR: Enslave us? Sing oftoday! See Sing oftoday, How we can be Sing today, Free from the chains Sing today, He gave us! Sing today! PENNY: Uh, perhaps best to stay back here with your father, We're suffiring now Hope dear. The police will want to charge soon. Such lives ofsorrow! BOBBY: Your father?

Tile Musical &0 UAINETOWN HOPE: Charge?! Daddy, these people need understanding, not Iftoday there's spillage, tell us how brutality. Tomorrow will not stink! CLADWELL: On the contrary, Hope dear, a little brutality is ex­ CLADWELL: actly what these people need. Officer Lockstock! Ifit's you and me, now, Mister Strong, HOPE: Daddy, wait. He only wants the people to be happy, isn't Which one ofus will blink? that worth something? CLADWELL: Happy, you say?! Happy?! (He sings.) I say it's you, Mister Strong. So you want happy, Mister Strong> For on the subject oftomorrow­ Did you say happy, Mister Strong? CLADWELL AND CO.: Ifthey pee today, l'm sure they'll be You are wrong! As happy as a pup! CLADWELL: Officer Lockstock! Prepare your ... man. With no rules and no more fees to pay, BOBBY: Everybody into the amenity. We'll be relatively safer in Things would be looking up! there. But too bad the water that we share HOPE: Oh, Bobby, why didn't you tell me you were going to start Could fit inside a cup! a revolution? What oftomorrow, Mister Strong? BOBBY: Maybe for the same reason you didn't tell me you were a BOBBY: But what of today?! Cladwell. CLADWELL: HOPE: I'm the same girl I was last night. But what oftomorrow, Mister Strong?! BOBBY: The girl last night would have joined us by now, Think oftomorrow, Mister Strong! Hope. Our resources are as fragile HOPE: I can't fight against my father, Bobby. As a newborn baby's skull! BOBBY: And I can't not light against him. So you can join us or With your actions you would gut the child you can stand aside. And leave a lifeless hull! HOPE: Stand aside? Could it be you're so shortsighted, BOBBY: You heard me. So insensitive, so dull? HOPE: (Sings.) Think oftomorrow, Mister Strong! Bobby, think! THE POOR: But what of today?! Youre standing on the brink! CLADWELL AND CO.: You'll be arrested soon, You are wrong, Mister Strong, Perhaps as soon as noon, You and your socialistic throng! Ifthe people pee for ftee, they'll push And I could never bear The system to the brink! To see you taken where

&2 URINBTOWN The Musical The guilty peeers meet Urinetown! The toilet judgment seat! Today! BOBBY: You said Urinetown! To follow your heart. Sing oftoday! Heres where my heart leads. Now I'll do my part CLADWELL: You've picked a fight you can't win, today, Mister To banish all needs. Strong! Your rabble is no match for my men. JOSEPHINE: He's right, Bobby. They've got ... one ... two ... You made me to see, Two men, and we're all so poor! Fantastic'lly clear. CLADWELL: Now release the girl. It's time you faced your punish- When people pee ftee, ment like a man. Weve nothing to ftar. BOBBY: Release?! No one's holding- (The ghost of OLD MAN STRONG and TINY TOM appear in the dis­ HOPE: BOBBY: tance.) Give up now! OLD MAN STRONG: Bobby! Bobby, reason with the woman! I'm a We'll find a way somehow Your words were like seeds, little short this morning! To help the people pee TINY TOM: No shorter than yesterday. Unless I've grown. Without a hefty foe. At first they seemed mild. (They disappear.) · But ifyou must persist LITTLE SALLY: You can punish our bodies, Mister Cladwell, but Being an anarchist, They grew into deeds. you can never punish our spirits! My fother s men will see SOUPY SUE: Punish our bodies?! Youfe sent away from me/ This riots our child! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: I never agreed to any punishment of my body! You'll get Urinetown! CLADWELL: Oh, punishment is all you'll ever know ... once you Sing oftoday, not tomorrow! release the girl!! Bobby, you'll get THE POOR: CLADWELL AND UGC STAFF: Urinetown! Bobby, help! You End their lives ofsorrow! He'll turn our brains to kelp! are wrong, Mister Strong! Offyou'll go to No matter what we do, You Urinetown! We're in a real bad stew! are wrong, Mister Strong! Today! Those cops look awfol mean, Very

The Musical && B4 URINBTOWN Like none we've ever seen.' wrong, Mister Strong! pyre unknown place When Cladwell gives the cue, You till that we all You are No, Our revolution's through! are wrong, Mister Strong! freedom is dread to face! wrong, Mister Bob- IS Strong! by! BOBBY: THE POOR: CLADWELL HOPE: won! AND UGC STAFF:

ALl. BUT ROBBY: BOBBY: Last Bobby, please! You'll/Well get night your There's no way You are Urinetown! Sing oftoday, words were to appease wrong, Mister not tomorrow.' like a raging Strong! Bobby, you'll/ we'll get seeds. maniac, Urinetown! End their lives At A real in- You are ofsorrow.' first, they saniad wrong, Mister seemed He's like a Strong! Offyou'll/ we'll go to mild. speeding train Urinetown! They caught in a Very Today! grew tn- hurricane, wrong, Mister Urinetown! to but he is Strong! Today! deeds. in control Urinetown! This and he is You are Sing oftoday' riot's on a roll! wrong, Mister our Strong! (HOPE and BOBBY embrace.) child! Gladwell's nuts! HOPE: So what'll it be, Bobby? The With no if's, You are Oh BOBBY: Looks like we're in a real tight spot, doesn't it? child is and's, or but's! wrong, Mister Bob- HOPE: Your fellow revolutionaries seem to think so. on Yes, he's a Strong! by! BOBBY: I suppose we should leave. fire. real-live loon! HOPE: Oh, Bobby, they'll never let you leave now. He's A freaking You are No, (The ghost ofow MAN STRONG appears in the distance.) hot as looney tune! wrong, Mister Bob- OLD MAN STRONG: Remember me, boys! Oh God, what have I the And when he's Strong! by! done?! Remember me!!! sun! done with us, (He disappears.) He'll well find we're Very Oh burn like on a bus wrong, Mister Bob- BOBBY: Not without you, they won't. Which is why you're com- a bound for that Strong! by! ing with us.

68 URINETOWN The Musical 67 HOPE: Coming with you? I told you, Bobby, I won't fight against Sing today! You're wrong! my father. Mister Strong! (BOBBY clutches HOPE tighter.) Sing today! You re wrong! BOBBY: And I told you I won't not fight against him. HOPE: But how can I come with you and still not fight against BOBBY: Keep your men back, Cladwell! We've got your daughter my father unless ... unless ... oh dear God, Bobby, no!!! and we're not letting her go! HOPE: Bobby, what are you- BOBBY AND POOR! CLADWELL AND CO.: JOSEPHINE: (Pulling her away.) In the name of the sky, you're From ev'ry coming with us! Hill, Wrong, Mister Strong! BOBBY: We're walking out of here, Mister Cladwell, and Ev'ry steeple, Think oftomorrow, you're going to let us! That is, if you care about your Mister Strong! daughter. Ring out the anthem Our resources are as CLADWELL: You're making a terrible mistake, Mister Strong. Fragile PENNY: Let the girl go, Bobby, she's done nothing wrong! Ofthe people As a newborn babys skull! BOBBY: Don't let go of the girl. And follow me! Making a With your LOCKSTOCK: Boss, what do we do?! New way, Actions you would gut the CLADWELL: Seize them! Breaking the Child and PENNY: No! Clouds ofgray Leave a liftless hull! CLADWELL: Don't let them get away! A liftless hull, HOPE: Help me! To sing oftoday! Mister Strong! PENNY: Help her! You're very dull, BOBBY: Now run, everybody! Run for your lives! RUN!! Mister Strong! (General mayhem, first in real time, then in slow motion. BOBBY, Sing oftoday! Disperse your throng, JOSEPHINE, and the rest of THE POOR escape with HOPE as a Mister Strong! hostage. Everyone sings as WCKSTOCK explains.} Disperse your throng, And end your song, WOMEN: MEN: LOCKSTOCK: Sing oftoday! And end your song, Urinetown! Well, that's it for Act One. Mister Strong! Urinetown! As you can see, the rebel You're wrong, Urinetown! poor are making their get- Mister Strong! Urinetown! away with Hope as a hos- Sing today! You're wrong, Urinetown! tage. The rest of us have Mister Strong! Urinetown! been thrown into confu-

58 URINETOWN The Musical &8 What is Urinetown? (CLADWELL, MCQUEEN, and FIPP enter.) Urinetown's the end! CLADWELL: I want them found, damn it! I want my daughter re­ Swift and brutal punishment­ No need now to pretend! leased and I want Bobby Strong punished! LOCKSTOCK: We're working round the clock, sir. But as the sign HOT BLADES HARRY: says it is a secret hideout, so- The trapdoor's sprung and then you're hung, , , CLADWELL: Enough of your excuses, Lockstock! You ve got And when they cut you down, weapons! Use them! They'LL box you up and ship you out And call it Urinetown! LOCKSTOCK: But, sir­ CLADWELL: ALL: (Sings. ) They'LL box you up and ship you out What is Urinetown? And call it Urinetown! Urinetown's a tool Town! An instrument ofpower Town! To enforce my iron rule! Town! So send your troops to aLL the stoops Town! And Let them understand, THE POOR: IfHope is not returned, Dance? It's Urinetown for all the Land! No! ALL: Never do they dance! IfHope is not returned, It's Urinetown for all the land! Those people down in Urinetown, they never get the chance! Dancing, forget it! Land! Never, nada, nope! Land! Unless it's at the bottom ofa rope! Land! Land! HOT BLADES HARRY: So don't get your hopes up. And I say if they're not back soon, we give it to her like her father was CLADWELL: gonna give it to us. Dance? Dance? (Lights cross back to LOCKSTOCK.) Do they think 11L dance? LOCKSTOCK: People hear lots of things about Urinetown, of Those people with my daughter want to course, and that's just the way we like it. For example, a little Make me change my stance! boy once asked me, "Is Urinetown actually a nice place to live? Stance-dance, forget it! Gingerbread houses along golden, frothy canals? Like Venice, Never, nada, nein! but different?" I didn't say yes. I didn't say no either. 11L teach them not to take ftom me what's mine!

82 URINETOWN The Musical 83 MCQUE~N: We should hurry, sir. The Emergency Planning Quo- My heart is like a stallion racing through a great expanse! rum IS waiting. Canyons offreedom, that's where it will waltz, CLADWELL: Yes, of course. The Quorum. Performing coronary somersaults! (They exit. Lights cross to BOBBY and JOSEPmNE, now elsewhere in JOSEPHINE: Your heart is like a stallion? the city.) (A police whistle is heard in the distance.) JOSEPHINE: That was a close one, Bobby. I thought Barrel saw us BOBBY: I'll explain along the way, Ma. C'mon, let's go. there for sure. (They exit. Lights cross to LOCKSTOCK, who's just nabbed LITTLE BOBBY: We'll have to keep on our toes, Ma. At least until we've SALLY.) distributed the rest of these memos to the other assistant cus­ LOCKSTOCK: Where are they hiding, Little Sally?! Tell me and I'll todians around the city. see things go easy on you. JOSEPHINE: Do you think they'll join us? LITI'LE SALLY: Easy on me?! You mean like sending me to the BOBBY: Hard to say. They're scared like we used to be scared, but nice part of Urinetown?! if it's true what they say about everyone having a heart, they'll LOCKSTOCK: That can be arranged. have to join us. (He sings.) LITTLE SALLY: Save it for one of your other stoolies, Of­ What is Urinetown? ficer Lockstock. My heart's with the rebellion. And besides, Urinetown's a lie, the way I see it, I'm already in Urinerown. We all are. Even A means to keep the poor in check you. Until the M.y they die! (LOCKSTOCK loosens his grip.) I did not shirk their dirty work, LOCKSTOCK: Me? In Urinetown? But things are different now. LITTLE SALLY: Sure. The way I see it, Urinetown isn't so much a We'll fight for right with all our might place as it is a metaphysical place. (She sings.) Until we win somehow! What is Urinetown? BOBBY AND JOSEPHINE: Urinetown is here! We'll fight for right with all our might It's the town wherever Until we win somehow! People learn to live in fear. How! So look around, you've fin'lly found How! The place you asked about, How! For Urinetown is your town How! Ifyou 're hopeless, down-and-out! BOBBY: ALL: Dance! For Urinetown is your town Dance! Ifyou 're hopeless, down-and-out! Listen to it dance! (LOCKSTOCK sings alone while LITTLE SALLY scrambles off.)

84 URINETOWN The Musical 88 LOCKSTOCK: LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: String her up! For Urinetown is your town umE SALLY: Wait a minute! You can't just give her the rope! Ifyou 're hopeless, down-and-out! HOT BLADES HARRY: Why not?! ALL: LITTLE sALIX: Because killin' her would make us no better than them. Out! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Haven't you heard, Little Sally? We Out! are no better than them. In fact, we're worse. Out! LITTLE SALLY: Worse?! Out! (Vamp begins for "Snuff"That Girl. ") (LOCKSTOCK Looks around and sees that LITTLE SALLY has escaped) HOT BLADES HARRY: Whaddaya think they talk about in those LOCKSTOCK: Where'd she go?! Damn it. (He turns to go, but be- quorums they got up there-how good we are?! So listen up fore he Leaves-) Welcome back, everybody. And enjoy­ now! Any second those cops are gonna bust in here and bust what's left of the show! Little Sally ... Little Sally ... what did us up like a bunch of overripe cantaloupes! So I say as long as you mean by "metaphysical"? our juice has gotta spill-all over this floor, here-her juice ALL: has gotta spill, too! Cladwell juice! Then we'll see who's better Hey! than who. (He sings.) Look at her there, All bound up, gagged and tied, Scene 2 With her head foil ofhair And her heart fotl ofpride . The secret hideout. THE POOR have just about Lost it. Well, boys, I've had enough Ofeach arrogant curl. HOT BLADES HARRY: I say five more seconds and then we let her Bing! Bang! Boom! Let's get tough, have the rope. Five ... Four ... Three, two, one! Playin' rough. (LITTLE SALLY enters.) Snuff that girl. LITTLE SALLY: Geez, that was a close one. Cops crawlin' all over LITTLE sALLY: "Snuff that girl"? But killing people is wrong! the place. LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Then why does it feel SO right? (She LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Little Sally! Where the hell have you sings.) been?! Look at us here LITTLE SALLY: Spyin' near the tower, is all. Cladwell and Fipp and In a hole, on the lam, Ms. Pennywise, they was all meecin' up there. Some kind of-I With our hearts foil offear. don't know what you want to call it-a quorum of some kind. What a rip! What a sham! HOT BLADES HARRY: That's it, she gets the rope. You know cops will be here LITTLE SALLY: The rope? Bustin' heads mighty quick.

87 88 URINETOWN The Musical HOT BLADES HARRY: BILLY BOY BILL: But we'll beat them to the punch Boom! When we snuffout that chick! HOT BLADES HARRY: LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Yeah! ~ tried doin' what we should. LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: HOT BLADES HARRY: Okay now, snuff! Wasn't glad. BILLY BOY BILL! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Snuffthe girl! Then we learned that feelin' good LITTLE BECKY TWO -SHOES: HOT BLADES HARRY: Yeah! Means doin' bad. SOU PY SU E AND BILLY BOY BILL: HOT BLADES HARRY AND LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Snuffthe girl! Nuts, they fall close, TINY TOM AND ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: So they say, to the tree. Snuffher! Looky here, here's an a­ HOT BLADES HARRY AND LITTLE BECKY TWO -SH OES: Corn from Gladwell I see. Oh yeah, now go! I say she is the nut, ROBBY THE STOCKFISH : And ofcourse, we're the squirrel Snuff the girl! She is what we saved for winter, HOT BLADES HARRY AND LITTLE BECKY TWO-SH OES: So let's snuffthat girl Yeah! HOT BLADES HARRY: BILLY BOY, ROBBY, TINY TOM, HOT BLADES HARRY: Bing! Snuffthe girl! TINY TOM: ALL: Bing! Yeah, snuff the girl! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: (Dance break.) A -bing bang! ALL: SO U PY SUE: This is the end. Bing bang! Roll the dice, place your bets. HOT BLADES HARRY: In this mis'rable world, A-bing bang boom! That's as good as it gets. ROBBY T HE STO CKFISH : So now, let's live it up. Boom! Eat the oyster and the pearl.

68 URINETOWN The Musical 69 And let's get this party jumpin; BOBBY: Maybe I am. Really get it pumpin: ALL: Whaa-?! Let's get this party jumpin: BOBBY: And maybe I made a promise up there. A promise Yeah, let's snuffthat­ that from chis day forward, no man would be denied his es­ Snuffthat girl! sential humanity due to the condition of his pocketbook. TINY TOM: Lee's bring our message of hare to the entire world! That no man in need would be ignored by another with HOT BLADES HARRY: Easy, friend, a message like ours works best rhe means to help him. Here and now, from this day forward, under extremely unbalanced circumstances. because of you, and you, and you, we will look into the faces LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Such as we have right here? of our fellow men and see not only a brother, but a sister as HOT BLADES HARRY: Exactly. Now get the rope. well. TINY TOM: That's right, rhe rope. HOT BLADES HARRY: What is that supposed to mean? (BOBBY and JOSEPHINE enter the secret hideout umeen.) SOUPY SUE: When did he say that? LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: String her up. That's the answer. TINY TOM: I don't remember him saying that. String up the strumpet daughter of the criminal urinal chain LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: All I remember him saymg was owner Cladwell! "Run! Run for your lives! Run!" SOUPY SUE: Kill her! BOBBY: Well, that was in the heat of battle. And in the hear-the ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: Hang her! actual hotness of battle-the cry of freedom sounds some­ LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: KilJ her! thing like (He sings.) BOBBY: Enough! Run, freedom, run! THE POOR: Whaa-?! Freedom, run away! LITTLE SALLY: Bobby Strong. My friends, you have to run, BOBBY: No one's going to be killing anyone around here. Run-a, run-a, run. HOT BLADES HARRY: Why not? Freedom, run away! JOSEPHINE: Because she's our security blanker, that's why! SOUPY SUE: Bur we're so afraid, Bobby. Killing her might make That freedom sun us feel powerful for a moment. Will shine someday. _,. .... BOBBY: Friends, I know you're afraid. Bur this has got to be Till then you better run, about more than just revenge and the vicarious thrill of string­ Run-a, run-a, run. ing up someone who can't defend herself Freedom, run away! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: But why? We wane to hang her as re­ TINY TOM: I'm frightened! venge for her father's crimes. BOBBY: As well you should be. Freedom is scary; it's a blast of LITTLE SALLY: I think he's just in love with her, that's what I cool wind that burns your face to wake you up. think. TINY TOM: Literally?!

7 0 U RI NETO W N The Musical (Pause.) BOBBY: BOBBY: Yes. (He sings.) And he's put his henchmen on your trail! There's a trickle ofsweat­ THE POOR: THE POOR: Run, freedom, run! There's a trickle ofsweat­ BOBBY: BOBBY: Im simply layin' out the foe's for you. Drippin' in your ear-­ Great big Gladwell's makin' tracks for you. THE POOR: Ain't no time to relax for you- Drippin' in your ear-- BOBBY AND THE POOR: Run, freedom, run! BOBBY: THE POOR: BOBBY: But still, you gotta run, Ah- Run, freedom, run! Run-a, run-a, run. THE POOR: Freedom, run away! Run, freedom, run! Run, freedom, run! THE POOR: BOBBY: Run, run away! Freedom, run away! THE POOR: BOBBY: THE POOR: Freedom, run away! So now, don't you fret, Ah- Freedom, run away! And never fear! BOBBY AND THE POOR: Till freedom's My friends, you have to run, Run-a, run-a, run. BOBBY AND THE POOR: Freedom, run away! WOn, won-a, won-a, won. THE POOR: BOBBY: Freedom, run away! Freedom, run away! Freedom, run away! THE POOR: Freedom, run away! Run, freedom, run! BOBBY AND THE POOR: BOBBY: That freedom sun, There's a great big Gladwell on your tail! That freedom sun THE POOR: Will shine someday. Run, freedom, run! BOBBY: ... Three, four!

72 URINETOWN The Musical 73 BOBBY AND THE POOR: Till then you better THE POOR: Freedom sun! Run, run-a-freedom, run. Freedom, run away. BOBBY: That freedom sun will shine All over our freedom story.' BOBBY: THE POOR: I said freedom- Run, freedom, run! Hallelujah.' ! said freedom- Freedom, run away! Hallelujah! ! said, freedom, run. My friends, you Freedom, run Have to run, Ah- Away! Run-a, run-a, run. THE POOR: Freedom, run away! Run, freedom, run! Run, freedom! THE POOR: Freedom, run away! Run, Hallelu! (THE POOR continue backup vocals under the following.) BOBBY: LITTLE SALLY: What do we do now? That freedom sun.' JOSEPHINE: The police will be on the lookout for us, that's for THE POOR: sure. Freedom sun! BOBBY: When the time comes, we fight the police! BOBBY: soUPY SUE: But how?! Will shine someday. (Backup vocals trail offas THE POOR realize what BOBBYs suggest­ THE POOR: ing.) Some sweet day! BOBBY: With blood! Guts! Brains, if we have to! It may take BOBBY AND THE POOR: years! And some of us will almost certainly not make it Till then you better through the revolution alive! Maybe all of us! But fight on we Run, run-a, run-a, run, will, for all the decades necessary, to claim freedom for the Run-a, run-a, run. people of this land!! Hallelujah! (Pause. PENNY enters, umeen.) THE POOR: TINY TOM: Decades? Freedom, run! LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: How about a real plan? BOBBY: PENNY: I've got a real plan. With the wind in your hair, ALL: Whaa-?! You'll run to freedom glory. BOBBY: Ms. Pennywise? How did you find us?

74 UAINETOWN The Musical 7S PENNY: I had a feeling you'd be here. No one knows the sewer (PENNY exits. BOBBY takes offHOPES gag.} system like you do, Bobby. HOPE: Hello, Bobby. BOBBY: Or you. BOBBY: Hello, Hope. PENNY: Cladwell would like to talk to you, Bobby. HOPE: So this is the bright new day you were telling me about. BOBBY: What about? BOBBY: I don't blame you for being angry with me, Hope. Bur PENNY: He wants to discuss the situation with you man-to-man. your father gave us no choice. He says he now understands how unhappy the people of this HOPE: They may not have taught me much at the Most Expen­ community have become and he wants to work out a solution sive University in the World, but they taught me this much: with you. Peacefully. kidnapping people is wrong. TINY TOM: Now there's a shortcut. BOBBY: Really? They taught you that there? SOUPY SUE: That'll save us on the decades of struggle! (Pause.} JOSEPHINE: But can we trust him? HOPE: I thought we had something special together, Bobby. PENNY: Mister Cladwell doesn't want a fight, Mrs. Strong. He BOBBY: We do have something special together, Hope. But until just wants his amenities up and running, smooth and natural. freedom rules the people of this land instead of fear, love has That's all he's ever wanted. about as much chance as a baby bunny drowning in a vat of BOBBY: What do you think, Little Sally? boiling water. LITTLE SALLY: I think it might be difficult for your love to grow HOPE: Maybe less. with Hope tied to that chair for the rest of her life. {Pause.) (BOBBY thinks a moment.} BOBBY: I didn't mean to drag you into all this, Hope. BOBBY: AH right, I'll go. HOPE: And I didn't mean to . .. Oh, I guess I don't know what I (General commotion.} meant to do. JOSEPHINE : Bobby, no! What if it's a trick?! BOBBY: Look to yo ur heart, Hope. I think the answer to what BOBBY: That's just a chance I'll have to take. you want is waiting for you there, deep down, somewhere ALL: {Gasp!} among the tissues. (He exits.} PENNY: What about the girl? HOPE: Wait a minute, when will I see you again? (She sings.) JOSEPHINE: She stays here. Any funny business and she gets it. When darkness surrounds you, You tell that to Cladwell. And you've lost your way, PENNY: Sure, I'll tell him. Lik~wise with the girl. Give it to her You have your own compass and we give it to him. Get me? That turns night to day, BOBBY: We'll be careful . And its even with you PENNY: Now stay calm, Hope darling. We'll have you out of this Before you depart. in no time. Be still, hear it beating,

77 78 URINETOWN The Musical It's leading you. happening right now. There was the looting, of course, and Follow your­ the hoarding. Riots broke out like there was no tomorrow, for Oh, Bobby. there was no tomorrow, but there is always a tomorrow if I you're tough enough to cling to it. Which is why I've asked you here tonight. Scene 3 (McQUEEN opens the suitcase, revealing piles and piles ofcash.) ALL: Ooooooooo.

The offices of Urine Good Company. CLADWELL, FIPP, and uGc CLADWELL: Some people see me as an . .. evil man. STAFF receive PENNY and BOBBY. ALL: Noo! I How awful! I Oh, Mister Cladwell! I Etc. CLADWELL: But the truth is, I'm no more evil than you or CLADWELL: You've caused a lot of excitement over the past few Ms. Pennywise or any of those poor people you insist on try­ days, Mister Strong. Gotten a lot of people riled up. ing to lead. I'm only a simple man trying to cling to tomor­ BOBBY: This is just the beginning, Mister Cladwell. The people row. Every day. By any means necessary. have only just begun to fight. (BOBBY fingers the cash.) CLADWELL: Keeping my daughter confined against her will- is BOBBY: And what happens when the drought is over? that how the people fight? CLADWELL: Over? (All except BOBBY chuckle.) Well, we can always BOBBY: They fight by any means necessary. hope, I suppose. But until then our regimen of controlling MRS. MILLENNIUM: The streets are still ours, Mister Strong. Your consumption through the regulating mechanism of cash must people are just holed up in some underground sewer. continue. BOBBY: They'll be up. BOBBY: Ah yes, the regulating mechanism of cash. (LOCKSTOCK and BARREL rush in, truncheons in hand.) (CLADWELL puts his arm around BOBBY.) LOCKSTOCK: Sorry to interrupt, Mister Cladwell. There's a dis- CLADWELL: Bobby, I want you to have this cash. And I want you turbance over at Public Amenity Number Thirty-two, Num­ to tell the people that the powers that be grant full amnesty to ber Fifteen as well. Word's begun to spread. those involved in this week's criminal activities as long as BARREL: People have gathered at all the rest. They're waiting to they're willing to return to the improved fee schedule as au­ see what young Bobby will do. thorized by the Legislature. Don't let it happen again, and LOCKSTOCK: After he meets with you, of course. have a good time in Rio. CLADWELL: Of course. (He considers BOBBY.) Mister McQueen! BOBBY: So many tomorrows. (MCQUEEN places a suitcase on CLADWELL 's desk.) Do you re­ CLADWELL: Yes. member the Stink Years, Mister Strong? The first years when I BOBBY: But I'm afraid my conscience will cost you more than a the water table started to drop and then just kept on drop­ pile of cash, Mister Cladwell. ping? No one thought they had much time then, and many of PENNY: Bobby, it really is an awful lot of cash. us did . . . questionable things, much like the things that are BOBBY: Free access is the only "cash" I'm interested in.

The Musical 79 78 UAINETOWN CLADWELL: I thought we had an understanding, Bobby. PENNY: BOBBY: T hen understand this: If there truly is a way to that Why did I listen to that man? bright new day, we'll find it together. All of us, not just the Why did I listen to the nature ofhis plan? wealthy few. And that means free access. And when he talked, CLADWELL: Free access is impossible. I should have balked, BOBBY: Then that's what I'll tell the people. (He turns to go.) I should have walked, CLADWELL: Stop! (LOCKSTOCK and .BARREL block his exit.) We'll I should have ran! not return to the Stink Years, Mister Strong. I'll not allow it. Why did I listen to that man? PENNY: Caldwell, what are you doing?! (She is dragged off. Outside the UGC headquarters building: CLAD­ CLADWELL: I've spent a lifetime building this company, paying WELL, MCQUEEN, OR. BILLEAUX, MRS. MILLENN IUM, and FIPP enter.) off the police, bribing the political elite, and snuffing out pop­ cLADWELL: (To MCQUEEN) You, get word to police headquarters; ular resistance as if it were a naughty baby bunny in the palm we'll need all hands on deck ronight. (McQUEEN EXITS. To BIL­ of my hand. My right hand. I've centralized all power to a LEAUX, MILLENNIUM, then again to BILLEAUX) You, you, and you, pinpoint spot-right here! Between these two ears! And I'm stay with me! We'll see about these little "disturbances." And Fipp! not going to allow some dreamy-eyed boy who can't remem­ FIPP: Yes, Cladwell? ber the Stink Years to ruin all that! Seize him! CLADWELL: Assemble the Legislature. I want fuJ I authority for (LOCKSTOCK and .BARREL seize BOBBY.) the coming crackdown. PENNY: Don't do it, Caldwell! There's no telling what they'll do FIPP: And dirty my hands with this bad business? Not on your to the girl! life. CLADWELL: That's just a chance I'll have to take. cLADWELL: Don't kid yourself, Fipp. Your hands are as fi lthy as a ALL: {Gasp!} child's after sandbox time. But don't worry, you can wash MRS. MILLENNIUM: He really is as evil as they say. them soon enough! Wash them by the banks of the Rio del CLADWELL: You think just because I love my daughter I'll stop Rio. Now go! (To BILLEAUX, MILLENNIUM, then again to BIL­ clinging to tomorrow?! LEAUX) You, you, and you! Come with me! PENNY: Caldwell, what are you saying?! (He rushes offwith BILLEAUX and MILLENNIUM in tow. FIPP sings.) (Two UGC EXECUTIVES step forward to restrain PENNY.) FIPP: CLADWELL: I closed my heart to love once, I can do it again! Why did I listen to that crook? (Vamp for "Why Did I Listen to That Man?" begins.) To Urine­ A little bribe in cash is all it really took. town with him, then! With all haste, Officer Lockstock! With That's how that craven all haste! Toilet maven BOBBY: You lied to us, Cladwell! CLADWELL! Made me cave in. (The COPS drag BOBBY off, CLADWELL exits with his entourage. Be­ Im a schnook! gin montage. PENNY, still restrained by the UGC EXECUTIVES, sings.) Why did I listen to that crook?

80 UIUNETOWN The Mu sical B, (He rushes off Somewhere on the way to the UGC headquarters PENNY: Let go of me! I have to save Hope! UGC EXECUTIVE building rooftop: LOCKSTOCK and BARREL enter with BOBBY, now #t: There's no saving Hope now, Ms. Penny­ blindfolded and bound at the wrists.) wtse. uGc EXECUTIVE #2: There may be no saving you. BOBBY: You lied to us, Cladwell! You told us one thing, then you did another! That's what you did, Cladwell! That's what you did! PENNY: Oh no?! Then take that! And that! And this! And a few of these! LOCKSTOCK: Come on then, young Bobby. You can't keep screaming all the way down to Urinetown. (She fights audibly with her captors. HOPE sings.) HOPE: BOBBY: But Hope, she's still with the others. What happens to me happens to her. Why did I listen to that boy? He spoke ofhopes and dreams. LOCKSTOCK: What happens to you happens to all of us sooner or later. It filled me with such joy. How can I know BARREL: Rather later than sooner, I'd say. BOBBY: But not to Hope! Oh, please, not to Hope! He loved me so? (LOCKSTOCK and BARREL sing.) Was it for show? LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: wtls I his toy? Now we've finally got you. Why did I listen to that boy? Now you're in our claws, (PENNY escapes, the uGc EXECUTIVES chase after her. The UGC Captured in our city headquarters building rooftop: LOCKSTOCK and BARREL enter with Oflaws. BOBBY.) BOBBY: So what's it like, this Urinetown that I've heard so much There's no trial or jury, about? Nothing to discuss. BARREL: Perhaps better for us to "show" you. Now the law is speaking (BOBBY bumps into the rooftop edging. He feels around.) Through us. BOBBY: What's this? Where are we? BARREL: You, my boy, stand on the very threshold of a new You'll get Urinetown! world. Offwith you to Urinetown! LOCKSTOCK: The door is in front of you. Step through and Away with you to Urinetown! Urinetown awaits. Now, no more foss. BOBBY: Door? More like ... a railing. And pigeons. A rooftop? BARREL: And a drop. (They drag BOBBY off A street corner: PENNY is dragged on by two LOCKSTOCK: A decisive drop. UGC EXECUTIVES. Lights also up on HOPE, still in the secret hideout, bound to a chair.) BOBBY: I guess I still don't understand.

The Musical 83 82 URINETOWN BARREL: Never fear, the time of understanding is at hand! crook, That cad, My heart, My dad, (LOCKSTOCK rips offBOBBY S blindfold.) That That cad, You must go to My heart, My dad, LOCKSTOCK: Welcome, then! To the very gates ofUrinetown itself! crook, That cad, Urine town! My heart, My dad, (BOBBY stares awestruck at the spectacle. LOCKSTOCK and BARREL That That cad, My heart, My dad, laugh maniacal~J. PENNY, now somewhere eLse in the city, appears. She crook, That cad, Urinetown! My heart, My dad, sings with HOPE, who is still tied to her chair in the secret hideout.} That That cad, My heart, My dad, PENNY: crook, That cad, Urinetown! My heart, My dad, Why did I listen to that cad? Crook! Cad! Heart! Dad! HOPE: Why did I listen to my dad? ALL: HOPE AND PENNY: Urinetown! I went to work for him. (All repeat refrain "Urinetown" under following dialogue.) He said he was so glad. BOBBY: Look, there's Public Amenity Number Forty-seven! And HOPE: the Legislature! And ... and my boyhood home! Why, we're Was he sincere? just standing on top of the UGC headquarters building. And PENNY: this ... this is our town! Well, now its clear­ LOCKSTOCK: Yes. Yes, it is. HOPE: BOBBY: How could it be that we're in our town and in Urine­ And now I fear­ town at the same time ... unless ... unless ... dear God, no! HOPE AND PENNY: You couldn't have! That I 've been had! BARREL: Over you go, then. Why did I listen to BOBBY: Wait a minute, you're just going to throw me off this (FIPP, not for from the UGC headquarters building, appears. He roof and that's supposed to be Urinetown?! Death is Urine­ sings with the others.} town?! LOCKSTOCK: That's one interpretation.

FIPP: PENNY: LOCKSTOCK BOBBY: HOPE: (LOCKSTOCK and BARREL sing in counterpoint with BOBBY as HOPE, AND BARREL: PIPP, and PENNY sing ';4h. ") That crook, That crook, That cad, This is Urinetown! BOBBY: LOCKSTOCK AND BARREL: That crook, That cad, My heart, Why did I listen to my That That cad, Dead ahead its My heart, My dad, heart? Theres no trial or jury! crook, That cad, Urinetown! My heart, My dad, I heard its call and made this That That cad, My heart, My dad, revolution start! Nothing to discuss!

84 URINETOWN The Musical 85 So let the throng take up my Scene 4 song. Make Gladwell see that he is wrong! Now the law is Why did I listen to my heart? speaking through us! The secret hideout. THE POOR guard HOPE, still bound to the chair and gagged. All wait anxiously for BOBBY to return. (BOBBY now sings solo as LOCKSTOCK and BARREL join HOPE, FIPP, and PENNY singing '11h. ") LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: What's taking them SO long? BOBBY: souPY SUE: They should have reached an agreement by now. Why did I listen to my heart? Cladwell's not one to dillydally. I heard its call and made this revolution start. TINY TOM: All night the sirens and the screams. Maybe they're So let the throng celebrating? Take up my song. JOSEPHINE: Bobby won't let us down. He's a good boy, my Make Gladwell see that he is wrong! Bobby Strong. If anyone can find the way to freedom, he can. BOBBY, HOPE, PENNY, FIPP, LOCKSTOCK, BARREL: HOT BLADES HARRY: Otherwise we kill the girl. Right? That is Why did I I he listen to that­ the plan, isn't it? Why did I I he listen to that­ JOSEPHINE: Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, shall we? PENNY: (LITTLE SALLY enters.) Cad? JOSEPHINE: Little Sally? What's going on up there? HOPE: LITTLE SALLY: It's ... it's ... Dad? JOSEPHINE: Yes? BOBBY, HOPE, PENNY, FIPP, LOCKSTOCK, BARREL: LITTLE SALLY: I saw Bobby. Bad! JOSEPHINE: Yes? Why did I I he Listen to my I his- LITTLE SALLY: I ... I don't think the meeting went very well. (LOCKSTOCK and BARREL throw BOBBY o./f the edge.) JOSEPHINE: Why do you say that? BOBBY: Hearrrrrrrrrrrrmmt!!!!!!! LITTLE SALLY: Well, they threw him off a building. (LOCKSTOCK and BARREL watch him fall After a moment . . .) (Pause.) LOCKSTOCK: A shovel and a mop, Mister Barrel. You know the JOSEPHINE: What are you saying, Little Sally? Who threw who drill. off a building? LITTLE SALLY: Bobby. The policemen. They threw him off a building. JOSEPHINE: The police threw Bobby off a building? SOUPY SUE: They couldn't have done such a thing; we have Clad­ well's daughter. LITTLE SALLY: Well, they did.

BB URINETOWN The Musical 87 - /

TINY TOM: Is ... is he all right? LimE SALLY: Urn .. . JOSEPHINE: Well, is he?! (LITTLE SALLY breaks down.} LITTLE SALLY: Oh, Bobby. The policemen came soon enough, but not before I heard his last words. ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: His last words? LITTLE SALLY: That's right. (She points to HOPE.) It was about her. (Vamp for "Tell Her I Love Her" begins.} SOUPY SUE: What were they? LITTLE SALLY: They were . . . (She sings.} Tell her I love her, Tell her I'll always be with her, And I will see her in a better place, Where hope is always new. TOP LEfT, Greg Kotis (top) and Ayun Halliday, Paris, 1995 IGREG Kor•s•

TOP RIGHT: The cardiff Giant Theater Company ensemble, Chicago, 1988. Clockwise from left: Greg Ours was a short time. Kotis, Mark Hollmann, John Hildreth. Bob Fisher, and Phil Ridarelli !CA ROLYN scHNEtoER/MS scHNEIDER

Ours was a love that never bloomed IS SOLE OWNER OF IMAGEI Yet in that love there Lives a brand-new hope BOTTOM: The New York company of the Neo-Futurists, 1995. From left to right: Bill Coelius, Greg That's calling out to you. Kotis, Ayun Halliday, Spencer Kayden, and Robert Neiii ,•HoroGRAPH BYROBERT c. coELtusl

Its call is soft and gentle, tame and fine. It's docile and benign- (The ghost ofBOBBY suddenly appears in the distance and sings.} BOBBY: A pickle in the brine. What did I say? That isn't what I meant. I've lost my sense ofscent. I fear my life is spent. BOBBY AND LITTLE SALLY: No one is innocent. LITTLE SALLY: No one. (The ghost ofBOBBY disappears.}

88 UAINETOWN ) - I

TOP, The cast of the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival production of Urinetown. Clock­ wise from upper left: Kristen Anderson, Nick Balaban, Wilson Hall, louise Rozell, Victor Khodadad TO P LEFT, From the Fringe to the Great White Way: Spencer Kayden as little Sally with Jay Rhoderick Zachary lasher, Terry Cosentino, Jay Rhoderick, Rob Maitner, Adam Grant. Allison Schubert, carol as Officer lockstock inthe 1999 New York International Fringe Festival production

I DANNY SHAPIRO/FROM THE SHAPIRO ARCHIVES) Hickey, Bellavia Mauro, Spencer Kayden, and Raquel Hecker !GREG •or1s1

aonoM, Director John Rando with the scale model of Scott Pask's scenic /environment design for TOP RIGHT: Spencer on Broadway with Jeff McCarthy as Officer lockstock tc zoo1. JOAN MARc u s'

the off-Broadway production of Urinetown, New York City, 2001 !GREG •or s 1 1 aonoM: The final tableau from "Urinetown," the opening number of Urine town, as performed in the off-Broadway production at the American Theatre of Actors, New York City, 2001 . Top row, on cat­ walk, from left to right: David Beach, John Deyle, and Daniel Marcus. Middle row, standing, from left to right: Kay Walbye, Spencer Kayden, Rachel Coloff, Nancy Opel, and Hunter Foster. Front row, kneeling, from left to right: Rick Crom, Ken Jennings, Jeff McCarthy, lawrence E. Street, and Victor

W. Hawks tc zoo1. JOAN MAocust -

RIGn Nancy Opel as Penelope Pennywise sings "It's a Privilege to

Pee'' 10 2001. JOAN MARcus'

snow, The corporate minions of Urine Good Company idolize their leader, "Mr. Cladwell," in the off-Broadway production. From left LEFT: Jennifer laura to right: lawrence E. Street, Victor Th ompson as Hope advises W. Hawks. John Cullum, Rachel Hunter Foster as Bobby to Co loft, and Megan lawrence "Follow Your Heart"

10 2001. JO AN MARCUS))

BOTTOM , Hope (Jennifer laura Thompson) asks her father, Caldwell B. Cia dwell (John Cullum), if he believes in love

' •

TO P: The Poor conspire to TOP, John Deyle as Senator Fipp, John Cullum as Caldwell B. Cladwell, and David Beach as "Snuff that Girl" in the Mr. McQueen oversee the quashing of Bobby's revolution in the Act One Finale 10 2001. JoAN MARcu s1 off-Broadway sonoM, The Poor, backing up Bobby Strong, their revolutionary leader, sing "Free, people are production. Clockwise free!" in the Act One Finale of Urinetown as performed on Broadway at the Henry Miller Theatre, from left: Rick Crom, 2001. From left to right: Victor W. Hawks, Kay Walbye, Lawrence E. Street, Jennifer Cody, Hunter Rachel Colofl, Megan Foster, Rachel Cololf, Ken Jennings, Rick Crom (hidden behind Jennings), and Spencer Kayden Lawrence, Lawrence E.

10 2001, JOAN M ARCUS I Street, Ken Jennings, Victor W. Hawks, Spencer Kayden, and (seated) Jennifer Laura Thompson

(0 2001, JOAN M ARCUS!

LEFT: Jell McCarthy and Daniel Marcus as Officers Lockstock and Barrel prepare to send Hunter Foster as Bobby Strong to Urinetown in "Why Did I listen to that Man?"

10 2001. JOAN MAR CUS) SOUPY SUE: "No one is innocent"? What did he mean by that? LITTLE SALLY: I don't know, he started fading in and out after a while. It was a miracle he was alive at all, the fall was so horrible. TINY TOM: Was he talking about me? How can he say I'm not in­ nocent? Not innocent of what? LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Not innocent?! Who the hell does he think he is?! LITTLE SALLY: Wait! Wait, please. There's more. He said ... (She sings.) Tell all the people, Tell them the time is always now. Tell them to fight for what they know is right. (The ghost ofBOBBY appears again.) BOBBY: I've lost my sense ofsight, Andyet I see them. I see them standing hand in hand. BOBBY AND LITTLE SALLY: Hope tells Cladwell that she intends to send him to Urinetown. From left to right: Victor W. Hawks, I see them stanfling hand in hand

Lawrence E. Street, John Cullum, Rachel Coloff, and Jennifer Laura Thompson 10 zoo•. JOAN MARcus, And cheek to cheek and gland to gland. There still is hope, I see it, in this land, Ifonly- JOSEPHINE: Yes? BOBBY AND LITTLE SALLY: Ifonly­ ALL: Yes?!! LITTLE SALLY: And then he expired. (The ghost ofBOBBY disappears.) LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: That bastard Cladwelllied to US. JOSEPHINE: He took my Joseph. Now he takes my Bobby. TINY TOM: Who will lead us now?! (PENNY enters, unseen.) SOUPY SUE: We're lost! Lost, I tell you! The rebellion is over!

The Musical 89 ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: Destroyed With a shove] was something of a strumpet in my day. (She removes HOPEs TINY TOM: What do we do?! gag.) But never in my wildest- HOT BLADES HARRY: I'll tell you what we do! We do to her what HOPE: Enough! they did to him! ALL: {Gasp'!} SOUPY SUE: That's right! Do to her what they did to him! HOPE: My heart is telling me many things right now, as you can PENNY: Or you could take me instead. all well imagine. But one thing it's bellowing louder than any­ ALL: Whaa-?! thing else is rhat when there's wrong in the world we must LITTLE SALLY: Ms. Pennywise! right it. (She frees herselffrom her chair.) You did a wonderful LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Seize her! rhing by coming here, Ms. Pennywise. Mom. And if you can (THE POOR seize PENNY.) reform yourself, maybe we can reform a lot more than we PENNY: Yes, do whatever you feel you need to, but please, spare know. Ladies and gentlemen of the rebellion, if you want to rhe child. do to me what they did to Bobby, I wouldn't blame you. HOT BLADES HARRY: Old woman, you've been grasping and con- LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Seize her! niving all your days. Why so giving now? (All move toward HOPE.) PENNY: Because ... Hope is my daughter. HOPE: But if this righteous rebellion were to peter out in Bobby's ALL: {Gasp?!} absence, sending his memory to oblivion, I would blame you. PENNY: And I am her mother. All of you! Kill me and the rebellion dies wirh me. Let me lead ALL: [GASP?!!} you and the rebellion will triumph! PENNY: Yes, Hope, it's true. I am your mother, the onetime lover TINY TOM: Lead us?! of Caldwell B. Cladwell. ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: She's mad! TINY TOM: Strumpet! HOPE: Lead you to the very nerve center of my father's empire. LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Slattern! PENNY: I've got a key! PENNY: Call me what you will, bur it was during the Stink Years, HOPE: And the guards know not to question me. But once there, you see. No one thought they had much time then, so many we'll question Daddy. Oh dear, yes, we'll question him plenty! of us did ... questionable things. There was the looting, of JOSEPHINE: Why should we trust you? course, and the hoarding. But there were also the fond HOPE: Because Bobby-your hero-loved me. And I loved him. farewells and the late-night trysts. Life was an explosion filled JOSEPHINE: Hope, dear girl, on behalf of the people of the rebel- with riots, cheap cabarets, dancing girls- lion, perhaps we, in time, might be able to love you, too. LITTLE SALLY: And love? (They embrace.) PENNY: Oh yes, and love. There was love like no tomorrow, for HOPE: It's all that really matters, isn't it? Love? Now let's go do to there was no tomorrow, but there is always a tomorrow them what they were ultimately going to do to us! of some kind or another. After you were born, Caldwell ALL: Hooray!! made me promise never to reveal my identity to you, for I (Segue into .. . )

90 UAINETOWN The Musical ,,

Scene 5 BARREL: And I love you. Very much. (Pause.) Montage. HOPE, PENNY, and THE POOR move out to seize UGC LOCKSTOCK: I see. (He exits.) headquarters. LITTLE SALLY sings. BARREL: Well, that went pretty well. (HOPE AND CO. pounce on BARREL, killing him. JOSEPHINE sings.) LITTLE SALLY: JOSEPHINE: With a lust for You who fly the Saving water, Blimp ofevil, Man gives d4ughter Shun upheaval Up for dead! In the air! HOT BLADES HARRY: SOUPY SUE: Play it on your Then ask why the Stradivari! [/jde gets jarry­ Hes not sorry, Now you're sorry Not a shred! You're up there. HOPE AND CO.: HOPE AND CO.: Hes not sorry .. . Now you're sorry .. . Hes not sorry .. . Now you're sorry .. . His not sorry .. . Now you're sorry . . . His not sorry .. . Now you're sorry . . . (A street corner: LOCKSTOCK and BARREL enter.) Uust outside the UGC headquarters building: FIPP enters, followed BARREL: An absolute maze, that's what the sewer system is. by MRS. MILLENNIUM. HOPE AND CO. Creep into position.) LOCKSTOCK: I'm going back down to give it another look You FIPP: I'm perfectly capable of finding my own way to the Legisla­ scay here w guard the streets. ture, you know. (HOPE AND co. creep into position unnoticed by the COPS.) MRS. MILLENNIUM: No offense, Senator, but Mister Cladwell BARREL: I've been meaning to ask, Mister Lockstock. Do you didn't want you flying the coop, what with the coming crack­ ever ... have doubts about what we've been doing? About tbe down and all. killings and all? FIPP: And what if I am flying the coop?! What if I'm actually on LOCKSTOCK: It may surprise you to learn that sometimes I do, my way to the airport right now to catch the last flight out to but tbe health and security of this town are my primary con­ Rio?! What would you say to that. Hmmm?! cerns. I love the people of this community, Mister Barrel. Very MRS. MILLENNIUM: Can I come? much. Cladwell's edicts may be their only chance. (HOPE AND CO. sing as they pounce On F!PP and MRS. MILLENNIUM, (Pause.) killing them.)

92 UAINETOWN The Musical 83 li'

HOPE AND CO.: BILLY BOY BILL: Those who made dough I'm not sorry! From debasing ALL: Need erasing, No one's sorry. Need the knift! No one's sorry, Till they get to Urine- Let their blood flow (wcKSTOCK and the ghosts exit. The executive offices of UGC: Like Campari! CLADWELL and MCQUEEN enter. HOPE AND CO. are already waiting were not sorry­ there, hidden.) Hey, that's lift! CLADWELL: Any word from Lockstock and Barrel, Mister (Dance break·. HOPE AND co. mea k through the streets of the . McQueen? toward UGC headquarters· CLADWELL d czty h ' an MCQUEEN return from MCQUEEN : Not yet, sir. They're still searching the sewer system. t e crackdown; LOCKSTOCK and the g:h OSts OJ.r BARREL FI pp nd CLADWELL: Which is where they'll be keeping Hope, I imagine. I MILLENNIUM enter. All sing.) ' ' a only pray that when we meet in heaven she can find it in the vastness of her heart to forgive me. HOPE AND CO.: CLADWELL AND co.: (HOPE reveals herself) Once they liked to we're not sorry! HOPE: Giving up on me so soon, Daddy? Shoot their rifles, were not sorry! CLADWELL AND MCQUEEN: Whaa-?! Just for trifles, we're not sorry, MCQUEEN : Ms. Cladwell, what an unexpected surprise. Hunt us down. WeYe not sorry now! HOPE: Is there any other kind? CLADWELL: Hope darling, thank God you're safe. ALL: HOPE: I'm not safe yet, Daddy, but I will be. Soon all the people Ba-dap! Ba-dap! of this land will be safe. (PENNY reveals herself) HOPE AND CO.: CLADWELL AND CO.: PENNY: Most of us, anyway. Now it's we who Sorry! MCQUEEN AND CLADWELL: WHAA-? Play safori. We're not sorry! PENNY: It's all over, Caldwell. We've come to take you away. were not- (The rest of THE POOR reveal themselves.) CLADWELL: Take me away? But ... to where? CLADW:,ELL AND CO.: SOUPY suE: To the same place you sent young Bobby. were not sorry! ROBBY THE STOCKFISH: And Old So-and-So. HOPE AND CO.: TINY TOM: And all those who wouldn't--

84 eo URINETOWN Tile Musical

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JOSEPHINE: Seize him! CLADWELL: I (THE POOR seize CLADWELL) Aren't ya sorry? CLADWELL: Hope darling, what's the meaning of this? PENNY: HOPE: I've joined the revolution, Daddy. And you? I believe it's Sure, I'm sorry. time you joined the ex-pat community-in Urinetown! CLADWELL: ALL: {Gasplj I'm not sorry. CLADWELL: You're making a terrible mistake, Hope darling. You CLADWELL AND PENNY: need me more than you know. just umound. HOPE: The only thing we need now is freedom, Daddy. For the HOPE: Take him away. people. (ROBBY THE STOCKFISH and BILLY BOY BILL fead CLADWF.LL LITTLE SALLY: And love? out.) HOPE: Oh yes. And love. CLADWELL: I regret nothing! You hear me? Nothing!! Maybe I CLADWELL: That's what I used to think, too, Hope. Before the was a bad father and a cruel and vicious man! But I kept the Stink Years. But worldwide ecological devastation has a way of pee off the street and the water in the ground! You hear me?! I ... changing a man. You're too young to understand it now, kept the water in the ground!!! . . Hope dear, but there really are things more important than (CLADWELL is thrown offthe roof MCQUEEN tries to exzt qutetly but love. Food, water, and shelter, .for example. is stopped. ROBBY and BILLY return.) PENNY: And piles and piles of cash? MCQUEEN : What now, Ms. Cladwell? CLADWELL: It wasn't just cash, Ms. Pennywise. It was an awful HOPE: Now is the beginning for all of us. Now is a new day lot of cash. when each of us, regardless of race, creed, class, or criminal (They sing.) history, can come together as one people and share the fruirs CLADWELL: of our labor as one. Now is the dawning of a new age of com­ PENNY: So long, power! passion and the right to do whatever you like, whenever ~ou Mister Cladwe/l like, with whomever you like, in whatever location you hke. So long, money. Ladies and gentlemen, today marks the final day of an age of Caldwell Gladwell. fear, an age that lasted far too long. Today marks the first day of a new age! A new age-- CLADWELL: TINY TOM: Don't say it! I'm the bunny HOPE: Of hope! (She sings.) This time round I see a river flowing for freedom. PENNY: I see a river just in view. Remember when our I see a river flowing for freedom. M'ghts were starry? I see a river straight and true.

88 URINiiTOWN The Musical 87 Come to the river flowing for justice. HOPE AND LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: Come to the river rendezvous. All in the family. push toward the river, Come to the river flowing for justice. Shove toward the river, why don't you?

All for the people, me and you. ALL: (All scurry about, transforming the UGC of today into the UGC Step in the river, wade in the river, of tomorrow. OFFICER LOCKSTOCK enters to address the audience Soak in the river through and through! directly.) Once in the river, you are the river. LOCKSTOCK: Well, as you guessed, Hope took over her father's Friends on the shoreline jump in, too. business, instituting a series of reforms that opened the public LOCKSTOCK: Of course, it wasn't long before the water turned bathrooms to all the people, to pee for free whenever they silty, brackish, and then disappeared altogether. As cruel as l1ked, as much as they liked, for as long as they liked, with Caldwell B. Cladwell was, his measures effectively regulated whomever they liked. The UGC was renamed the Bobby water consumption, sparing the town the same fate as the Strong Memorial Toilet Authority and was operated as a pub­ phantom Urinetown. Hope chose to ignore the warning signs, he trust for the benefit of the public. however, preferring to bask in the people's love for as long as It LITTLE SALLY: Officer Lockstock? Where'd you go? lasted. LOCKSTOCK: Just keeping my head down, Little Sally. Something LITTLE SALLY: What kind of musical is this?! The good guys fi- you should learn to do. nally take over and rhen everything starts falling apart?! . LITTLE SALLY: But aren't you scared the rebels will see you? LOCKSTOCK: Like I said, Little Sally, this isn't a happy musical. LOCKSTOCK: Oh, I may be a cop, bur I'm also the narraror. So no LITTLE SALLY! But the music's SO happy! one can touch me, not if they want the show to end. (wcKSTOCK chuckles.) HOPE: So many people peeing at will. Thanks to the Rebellion LOCKSTOCK: Yes, Little Sally. Yes, it is. the world is a much better place. JOSEPHINE: Such a fever. If only I had a cool, tall glass of water, MCQUEEN : Actually, Ms. Cladwell, your father commissioned a maybe I'd have a fighting chance. study of water consumption just before he- HOPE: But don't you see, Mrs. Strong? The glass of water's inside HOPE: My father was a tyrant. We need never fear him again. you; it always has been. Justice is the only tyrant we need obey. JOSEPHINE: It has? (LITTI.E BECKY TWO-SHOES and HOPE sing.) HOPE: Of course, it has. Don't you know what you are? L~TTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: JOSEPHINE: A river? Sisters and brothers, fight for the river. HOPE: That's right. We all are. (She sings.) HOPE: You are the river, I am the river. Fathers and mothers­ He is the river, she is, too. LITTLE BECKY TWO-SHOES: HOPE AND JOSEPHINE: Babies, too! All are the river flowing for freedom,

89 98 URINETOWN The Musical

-~------.. ---' Flowing for justice, lets review. (The ghosts ofBOBBY, BARREL, FIPP, and CLADWELL enter.) ALL: ~ see a river flowing for fteedom. Wt see a river just in view. You see a river flowing for fteedom. In the moments before the Tony broadcast began, a man strolled You see a river straight and true. onstage to read the bejeweled and/or black-tied nominees the LITTLE SALLY: I don't think too many people are going to come riot act. Winners would be allowed one minute from the mo­ see this musical, Officer Lockstock. ment their names were announced to say their piece. Should LOCKSTOCK: Why do you say that, Little Sally? Don't you think they be fortunate enough to be invited to do so, winners should people want to be told that their way of life is unsustainable? make their way quickly to the stage, not thank their babysitter, LITTLE SALLY: That-and the tide's awful. Can't we do a happy and get off the stage before the "get off the stage" music started. musical next time? I heard rumors to this effect in the days leading up to the event LOCKSTOCK: If there is a next time, I'm sure we can. Well, that's and had written a thank-you speech that morning just in case. our story. Hope eventually joined her father in a manner not Read at a comfortable pace, it came in at fifty-eight seconds. quite so gentle. Mister McQueen opened a bottling factory Given more time, I would have thanked all the people whose ef­ just outside Brasilia, which did rather well until the Amazon forts made Urinetown possible, including those listed below; to dried up. Then he moved. As for the people of this town? see their names is to know how truly collaborative the making of They did as best they could. But they were prepared for rhe a musical must be: world they inherited, weaned as they were on the legend born Our genius-like, incomparable, stupendous, original Broad­ of their founding father's scare tactics. For when the water way/Off-Broadway cast, including David Beach, Bill Buell, dried up, they recognized their town for the first time for what Dwayne Clark, Jennifer Cody, Rachel\ Coloff, Rick Cram, John it really was. What it was always waiting to be. Cullum, John Deyle, Hunter Foster, Victor W. Hawks, Erin ALL: Hill, Ken Jennings, Spencer Kayden, Megan Lawrence, Stacie This is Urinetown! Morgain Lewis, Daniel Marcus, Jeff McCarthy, Nancy Opel, Mi­ Always its been Urinetown! chele Ragusa, Peter Reardon, Don Richard, Lawrence E. Street, '!'his place, itS called Urinetown! Jennifer Laura Thompson, Kay Walbye, and Kirsten Wyatt, all LOCKSTOCK: Hail, Malthus! brought together by the casting directors Laura Stanczyk, Jay ALL: Hail, Malthus! Binder, and Cindi Rush. LOCKSTOCK: Thank you. And good night. Our steady and extraordinary Broadway/Off-Broadway musi­ ALL: cians, including Ed Goldschneider, Paul Garment, Ben Herring­ That was our show! ton, Tim McLafferty, and Dick Sarpola, all brought together by the music coordinator John Miller.

•oo URINETDWN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS u• Our supremely fabulous stage managers, theater managers, Our heroic, utterly unforgettable cast, crew, and creative ream and crew, including Julia P. ]ones, Matthew Lacey, Joseph R. from the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival produc­ Bowerman, Sally Campbell Morse, Robert C. Strickstein, Marc tion, including Jay Rhoderick, Spencer Kayden, Wilson Hall, Borsak, ]. Anthony Magner, Kai Brothers, Susan Bell, Tech Pro­ Louise Rozett, Adam Grant, Carol Hickey, Victor Khodadad, duction Services Inc., Joseph Maher, Paul and Andrew Dean, Rob Maitner, Terry Cosentino, Nick Balaban, Kristen Anderson, Valarie LaMourt, Elspeth Appleby, Shannon Koger, Megan Bellavia Mauro, Zachary Lasher, Allison Schubert, Raquel Rhoads, Lucas Stoffel, George Arnores, Mary Mulligan, Todd Hecker, Joseph P. McDonnell, Wylie Goodman, Karen Flood, McKim, William Register, Bobby Driggers, and Dean Gardner. Michael Stuart, Peggotty Roecker, and Jane Charlotte Jones. Our magnificent and many-handed creative team, including The gratitude-inducing forces behind the New York Interna­ John Rando, John Carrafa, Edward Strauss, Bruce Coughlin, tional Fringe Festival, including John Clancy and Elena K. Holy. Scott Pask, the late, great Jonathan Bixby, Gregory Gale, Brian The prescient collection of actors and theater practitioners MacDevitr, Jeff Curtis, Lew Meade, Rick Sordelet, Darlene Dan­ who first perused rhe script, sang the songs, and read the lines, all nenfelser, David Kennedy, Jeannine Saba, Michele Lynch, Orit in the name of improving the material, including Andy Cook, Jacoby Carroll, Michele Wynne, Gretchen Krich, Yael Lubetzky, Steven Singer, Nannette Deasy, Debra Wassum, Eric Carrillo, and Charles Vorce. Jim Andralis, Raven Snook, Ian W. Hill, Adrienne Asterita, . Ou~ visio~ary, pathfinding, fear-destroying producing team, Dann B. Black, Heidi Goqt, Alana Israelson, Dan Perry, Marcus mcludmg Michael David, Lauren Mitchell, Edward Strong, and Woollen, David Auburn, Scott Hermes, Bob Fisher, Tommy everyone at Dodger Theatricals, Dodger Marketing, and the Moore, Stan Schwartz, Diana Slickman, Greg Allen, Robert Dodger Management Group; Theater Dreams, Inc.; and Michael Stockfish, Bill and Rob Coelius, and Sean Bosker. Rego, Matthew Rego, Hank Unger, Clint Bond, Jr., Aaron Har­ Pastor Brooke Swerrfager and the congregation of Christ nick, Jimmy Pellechi, laylor McGowan, and everyone at the Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Araca Group. Co-workers past and present, including the good people of the Our expert and professional boosters of every stripe, including Nco-Futurists, and the really very good people of the Cardiff Adnan Bryan-Brown, Jim Byk, Bill Craver, Ben Feldman, Mar­ Giant Theater Company. tine Sainvil, Mark Stevenson, and the fine people of Serino And, ultimately, our own community of friends and family Coyne. members who have made this life of writing plays possible, in­ Our snowbound yet indomitable January 2000 staged reading cluding Paula Karis, Sam Kotis, Juanita and Ray Hollmann, ]illy crew, including James Barbour, Nancy Opel, Marcus Lovett, Perlberger, and, finally, Ayun Halliday, who made us keep going Spencer Kayden, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Brooks Ashmanskas, even when we didn't want m. Dale Hensley, Nanci Gaye Bradshaw, Christopher Murney, Tom Thank you. Gualtieri, Jessica Frankel, Debra Wiseman, Raquel Hecker,

Duane Martin Foster, Michael St. John, and Daniel Marcus, all Gala KOTI8 AIID IIARIC. HOLLMANN brought together by the casting director Cindi Rush.

102 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDOMENT8 103