Urinetown

by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann

Nipomo High School - 2017

It is a time of sayings, of adages, parables and cliches - an era where words of our past return to comfort us amid the chaos unfolding around us. Perhaps we are doing this to find an island of security amid perpetually shifting standards, semantic bedrock, philosophical guideposts and dissolving ethical compasses. The words we draw on give us a way into beginning anew - if we find our way to how we started, perhaps we can untwist how we arrived, and be better armed to carve the next few feet in our journey toward the eternal. A few such collections of wisdom surfaced as I swam in the lingua franca of this production which we present to you:

“Theatre is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society.” - Yasmina Reza

“The theatre is a spiritual and social x-ray of its time.” - Stella Adler

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde

Catharsis has never been more in demand than now, as pressures make themselves more apparent and our complacency allows them to divert our attention to vitriol and indignation. Sitting here, you join us in forming a community transcending geography and temporality and open the door to releasing this trapped tension and permit the rebuilding of what needs attention.