Winner of three Tony Awards, including Best Book, Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann's Urinetown: The Musical is a tale of greed, corruption, love, and revolution in a time when water is worth its weight in gold. After a twenty-year drought made water a scarce commodity, private toilets became outlawed. Now, all restroom necessaries are controlled by the Urine Good Company (UGC), a megacorporation that charges fees for using public toilets. Anyone unable to pay fees--or who dares to relieve themselves outside the commode--are arrested and banished to "Urinetown". When UGC employee Bobby Strong's father falls victim to this tyranny, he spearheads a revolution, inspiring the people to rise up and reclaim their own restroom duties--unaware of the realities and consequences of his actions... With a preface by David Auburn, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Proof And an introduction by the authors “Elevated silliness of the highest order that makes a gratifying case for the restorative return to knowing foolishness and the smartly absurd. The show winks at everything from Hamlet's father's ghost to West Side Story , from the revolutionary pretensions of Les Mis to the revivalist joy of Guys & Dolls .” ― Linda Winer, Newsday Greg Kotis is a veteran of the Neo-Futurists, creators of the long-running attempt to perform thirty plays in sixty minutes. Jobey and Katherine , his play about fish, toast, and a love stronger and grimmer than death, enjoyed runs in New York and Chicago. He lives in Brooklyn with his family. Mark Hollmann attended the Making Tuners Workshop at New Tuners Threatre in Chicago and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York. A member of the Dramatists Guild and ASCAP, he lives in Manhattan with his wife. David Auburn is an American playwright whose 2000 play Proof won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was also adapted into a film. He has received the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Manhattan. Urinetown The Musical By Greg Kotis Faber & Faber Copyright © 2003 Greg Kotis All right reserved. ISBN: 9780571211821 Urinetown ACT I Scene 1 Early morning. The poorest, filthiest urinal in town. Above the entrance to the urinal hangs a sign that reads Public Amenity #9. THE POOR lie sprawled across the stage, sleeping quietly. Music for "Urinetown" plays softly in the background. OFFICER LOCKSTOCK enters from 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.) LOCKSTOCK: But Urinetown "the musical," well, here we are. Welcome. It takes place in a town like any town ... that you might find in a musical. This here's the first setting for the show. As the sign says, it's a "public amenity," meaning public toilet. These people have been waiting for hours to get in; it's the only amenity they can afford to get into. ( LITTLE SALLY approaches LOCKSTOCK. ) LITTLE SALLY: Say, Officer Lockstock, is this where you tell the audience about the water shortage? LOCKSTOCK: What's that, Little Sally? LITTLE SALLY: You know, the water shortage. The hard times. The drought. A shortage so awful that private toilets eventually became unthinkable. A premise so absurd that-- LOCKSTOCK: Whoa there, Little Sally. Not all at once. They'll hear more about the water shortage in the next scene. LITTLE SALLY: Oh. I guess you don't want to overload them with too much exposition, huh? LOCKSTOCK: Everything in its time, Little Sally. You're too young to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too much exposition. LITTLE SALLY: How about bad subject matter? LOCKSTOCK: Well-- LITTLE SALLY: Or a bad title, even? That could kill a show pretty good. LOCKSTOCK: Well, Little Sally, suffice it to say that in Urinetown (the musical) everyone has to use public bathrooms in order to take care of their private business. That's the central co