Urinetown Audience Response

Brooke Rollins

Mr. Kershner

THE 1000

4/8/2012

Penny for a Pee

            On the way to the theatre to see Urinetown: The Musical I picked up my cousin Kevin to tag along. Kevin is blind so, I told him he’d be the perfect person to help me get a unique perspective on the play and how the audience responds to it.  From the moment we entered the play, we had no idea what it was going to be about. Obviously, we realized it had something to do with urine but, the old timey costumes that were tattered and torn made us skeptical and very uncertain. I went in half expecting it to be like Underwear: The Musical, with the raunchy futuristic setting and content but when I stepped inside the theatre it was completely opposite.  Underwear was in the bigger theatre and the crowd was for the most part all younger college students so, it was exciting just to be in the presences of all that energy. Urinetown had a mixed audience, in a much smaller theatre; our seats were on the left side of the center stage. From our seats I could get a good view of the audience, to the left was mostly filled seats, a lot of college probably Daytona State students with a few older people in the front rows. The right side of the stage was sparsely seated and all older people and the center seating was a mixed group but mainly filled up. So, their turnout was good for a Sunday Matinee.

            When we took our seats we noticed the actors banging tin can shouting “penny for a pee”, Kevin and myself were a little bewildered, about what was going on and when one actor came up to us I just sort of stared at her dumb founded and then she moved on. When the show started the plot was quickly told and the “penny for a pee” finally made sense. Since, my cousin is blind I had to be the commentary for him explaining the stage and what the actors were doing.  At one point, the love struck couple, were listening to each other’s hearts and while they listened to one another’s they shook their butts and audience burst with laughter.  There were many other parts that had the audience rolling but, I could also see a lot of members who weren’t so amused. An elderly lady in the front row was a sleep for most of the play, it was funny because the man next to her kept trying to wake her up but, a second later she was out again.

            Some people you could tell really loved it, the lady that ran the snack bar ranted and raved about how good it was while others like my cousin and the lady in the front kept passing out.  The audience as a whole was very passive, no one called anything out and they were very respectful to those performing.  I could tell one of the audience’s favorite parts of the performance was when Ms. Pennywise the bathroom monitor had her solo singing part, her voice was amazing and the audience cheered enthusiastically.

            On our way home we did talk about the play, I had to explain some more things to Kevin. He didn’t really get the whole plot and who did what so, that’s probably why he ended up dozing off.  I enjoyed the play and thought it was very funny. The part both of us liked was when the police officer would “break the fourth wall” and talk about the play revealing the plot or saying things like “that’s not until Act 2”, the audience seemed to also get a kick out of it.