A resident commerical production of the Broadway hit Urinetown will play Chicago; it will open at the Mercury Theatre on March 26th after beginning previews on March 15th.
According to a statement by Mercury Theatre associate director Matthew Gunnels, Urinetown will be a "newly imagined production...the Mercury Theater is the perfect venue for this eagerly-awaited, sitdown production, blending the dynamite architecture of the old nickelodeon into a brand new environmental design." Tom Mullen, who recently staged the regional premiere of the show in Michigan, will once again direct, as well as co-produce the show with Blue Dog Entertainment L.L.C.Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann's Urinetown won three 2002 Tony Awards, including Best Original Score (Kotis and Hollmann) and Best Book (Kotis). In the musical, hero Bobby Strong must fight capitalist evil in the guise of the flashy Caldwell B. Cladwell, who has outlawed the free usage of public toilets in the show's futuristic society. The musical, through a Brechtian lens, also affectionately satirizes the conventions of musical theatre. Kotis and Hollman are said to be working on both a sequel and prequel to Urinetown: "This story is totally original, and we consider this one to be another part of a trilogy, of which Urinetown is the center piece," said Hollman last year of the prequel.Videos