Could a water shortage, a tycoon set on forcing the public to pay to use facilities, and a hero out to stop him be the subject matter of a musical? Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis thought so. Their problem was finding producers to agreed. But the happy result is Urinetown: The Musical, the off-beat show that moved to Broadway and was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Score. Although it didn't take the Best Musical prize, it won Tonys for Best Book of a Musical (Kotis), Best Score (Kotis and Hollmann) and Best Director (John Rando).
Its journey and that of composer/lyricist Hollmann and book writer/lyricist Kotis has been bumpy. As they struggled to get their show with the unthinkable title up, never did they image they'd be in Tony Awards contention. They just wanted to be taken seriously, which for over three years, didn't appear likely.
In Chicago, over ten years, they worked separately and eventually together in fringe, or Off Loop, theater. While Kotis, 36 but looking years younger (and married with two children), and Hollman waited "for our ship to come in," they worked their share of survival jobs, writing whenever, wherever they could. Kotis was a bike messenger until hit by a car. "I decided that wasn't the job for me." Arriving in New York in 1995, he quickly improved his typing skills "and joined the hundreds of others with theatrical aspirations doing temp jobs." He laughs that he didn't remain long at jobs that demanded too much, preferring ones where he could work on his writing. "I looked amazingly busy and had a spread sheet or something on the computer screen, then I'd toggle switch to my lyrics and script. When the boss approached, I'd furiously switch back."
Since 1993, Hollman, 38, supported himself through word processing. Here, for the last six years, he supplemented his income as an organist at Christ Lutheran Church on East 19th Street. There, following Sunday services, is where he and Kotis developed Urinetown.
Though grounded in the classical notion of what a musical should be, the gritty story of a water shortage so severe that water is rationed and a greedy tycoon who sees profit in making the populace, already on hard times, pay to use public facilities didn't have producers jumping aboard their bandwagon. But wait! the composers pointed out, there's also a love story -- between a young "revolutionary" who goes up against the tycoon and the tycoon's firebrand daughter.
In the summer of 1998, scripts and tapes went to 60 theaters and 50 agents. Nine times out of 10, they got the `Thank you very much, but...' form letter. "A couple," smiles Kotis, "noting the daring title, said 'Get lost!' But we got a few stating the material was promising and funny." Unfortunately, those theaters weren't in a position to take on big shows or they noted their conservative audience base. The musical's parody seemed to go over heads, and some thought the characters, with such dialogue as these exchanges between Officer Lockstock and street urchin Little Sally, "deconstructed" the show too much:
Lockstock: "...Nothing can kill a show like too much exposition."
Little Sally: "How about bad subject matter?...Or a bad title even?...I don't think too many people are going to come see this musical."
Lockstock: "...Don't you think people want to be told that their way of life is unsustainable?"
The composers sent out hundreds of letters and knocked on the doors "of the likely suspects" -- Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop - but to no avail. "We had the same experiences most playwrights and musical writers face early on," says Hollmann. "We weren't connected."
Their backs against the wall, they were ready to give up. Recalling their Chicago experiences, they were encouraged to bypass development, "rent a garage and put a show on." They decided to do that here, but instead entered Urinetown in the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival, which showcases avant garde work to mostly young, hip theater lovers. "We expected it to disappear," admits Kotis. "But," explains Hollmann, "we'd have the closure of having it on a stage in front of a live audience." "At that point," states Kotis, "we felt that would be enough."
Instead, Urinetown became the hot ticket, and 125 people were packed, SRO, into a 70-seat theater. There were nine performances, and an extension of four more. "However," notes Kotis, "we still didn't know if that would be our last gasp. At some point you have to come back to reality and bail out, say goodbye to the creative life and find a job you can live with."
A playwright friend the composers knew in Chicago got the Araca Group (producers of independent films and the Off-Broadway and tour productions of The Vagina Monologues, The Laramie Project and the upcoming Broadway revival of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune) to take a look.
"They thought it was great," states Hollmann with a sigh, "and gave us an option. Then we went through two years of development." With a little money in their pockets, they were able to briefly quit their jobs to concentrate full-time on their writing. Off Broadway, the show developed a buzz. Producers suddenly didn't mind the title and came in droves with the thought of a Broadway move. Great notices and nine Drama Desk Awards (including Best Musical) brought in Dodger Theatricals, currently on Broadway with revivals of 42nd Street and Into the Woods.
The creators were never asked to change the title. In fact, except for marginal changes, the show is 80% intact. Hollmann says if Urinetown had not moved onward, he would have found a way to continue writing musicals. "It's hard to give up." Now that his and Kotis' bumpy ride has segued into "this miraculous position," he's giving up his day job, working with Kotis on a new show (they will say only that it takes place underwater!) and taken a brave step -- he's engaged. The wedding is in October.
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