#1
Posted: 11/16/06 at 7:33am
My take on the Urinetown mess by Hunter Foster
The experience of Urinetown will always be one of my fondest memories in the theatre. In five weeks of rehearsal, John Carrafa and John Rando created one of the most collaborative times in my life.
Now, disturbingly, the creators of Urinetown have decided to go after a little dinner theatre in Ohio and a theatre in Chicago and serve a legal notice to them for copying their work. Their argument is that the two Midwest production teams, blatantly tried to use their work and pawn it off as their own. The Urinetown production team insists that the show lends itself to be creative and that the Midwest teams could have come up with other ways to tell the story. I had the privilege to sit through the production in Ohio, and found it to be a cousin of the original production but not a copy.
The Urinetown experience on and off Broadway was just that, an experience. There was a certain tone that was set and then supported by the choreography, the lighting and the costume design. I know that the production team in Ohio was trying to bring the Urinetown experience to their audiences. In much the same way artistic directors who bring “A Chorus Line” or “West Side Story” to regional theatres want their audiences to share in that show’s original experience. Rando and Carrafa claim that these theatres only have the rights to the music and lyrics and not the concept of how the show was originally done. But I am sorry, there are parts of the original production of Urinetown that will always be a part of the show no matter who directs and choreographs them. A dinner theatre audience might start throwing their food at the stage if the bottle dance in “Fiddler” wasn’t done in the same spirit as the original or in “West Side Story” we didn’t see the Jets snapping their fingers during “Cool”, and who can imagine a production of “Grease” without some version of Pat Birch’s “hand jive”? And isn’t Urinetown a parody of musical theater itself? Didn’t Carrafa and Rando borrow from Robbins and Fosse anyway? If they are so concerned with not getting credit for their concepts, maybe they should have negotiated a disclaimer the way Michael Bennett and Gower Champion did on their shows.
I just think we are walking down a dangerous path here. The Carousel dinner theatre took a chance doing Urinetown at a theater where their typical audience thirsts for an annual production of “Hello Dolly”, and now John Carrafa and John Rando’s claim will only inhibit future productions of this wonderful show. Who would want the headache of the original team breathing down their necks, checking every bit of blocking to make sure that their precious staging isn’t being stolen? And what about the young kids, out of high school or college, who want to be apart of a show they worshipped growing up only to be told that they can’t make that cross in the number because the theatre might get sued.
I understand people want to protect their work. No one is questioning that, but the ones speaking up also need to look at themselves. Rando and Carrafa directed and choreographed a production of “Pajama Game” at the Encores series, and the number “Steam Heat” definitely gave a nod to Fosse. I’m not saying it was a copy, but there were Bowler Hats and they were Fosse elements present. Should Carrafa forfeit some of his earnings to the Fosse estate? Should Encores be sued? I think we would all agree that the original choreography to “Steam Heat” would be classified as part of the experience.
Hunter Foster
The experience of Urinetown will always be one of my fondest memories in the theatre. In five weeks of rehearsal, John Carrafa and John Rando created one of the most collaborative times in my life.
Now, disturbingly, the creators of Urinetown have decided to go after a little dinner theatre in Ohio and a theatre in Chicago and serve a legal notice to them for copying their work. Their argument is that the two Midwest production teams, blatantly tried to use their work and pawn it off as their own. The Urinetown production team insists that the show lends itself to be creative and that the Midwest teams could have come up with other ways to tell the story. I had the privilege to sit through the production in Ohio, and found it to be a cousin of the original production but not a copy.
The Urinetown experience on and off Broadway was just that, an experience. There was a certain tone that was set and then supported by the choreography, the lighting and the costume design. I know that the production team in Ohio was trying to bring the Urinetown experience to their audiences. In much the same way artistic directors who bring “A Chorus Line” or “West Side Story” to regional theatres want their audiences to share in that show’s original experience. Rando and Carrafa claim that these theatres only have the rights to the music and lyrics and not the concept of how the show was originally done. But I am sorry, there are parts of the original production of Urinetown that will always be a part of the show no matter who directs and choreographs them. A dinner theatre audience might start throwing their food at the stage if the bottle dance in “Fiddler” wasn’t done in the same spirit as the original or in “West Side Story” we didn’t see the Jets snapping their fingers during “Cool”, and who can imagine a production of “Grease” without some version of Pat Birch’s “hand jive”? And isn’t Urinetown a parody of musical theater itself? Didn’t Carrafa and Rando borrow from Robbins and Fosse anyway? If they are so concerned with not getting credit for their concepts, maybe they should have negotiated a disclaimer the way Michael Bennett and Gower Champion did on their shows.
I just think we are walking down a dangerous path here. The Carousel dinner theatre took a chance doing Urinetown at a theater where their typical audience thirsts for an annual production of “Hello Dolly”, and now John Carrafa and John Rando’s claim will only inhibit future productions of this wonderful show. Who would want the headache of the original team breathing down their necks, checking every bit of blocking to make sure that their precious staging isn’t being stolen? And what about the young kids, out of high school or college, who want to be apart of a show they worshipped growing up only to be told that they can’t make that cross in the number because the theatre might get sued.
I understand people want to protect their work. No one is questioning that, but the ones speaking up also need to look at themselves. Rando and Carrafa directed and choreographed a production of “Pajama Game” at the Encores series, and the number “Steam Heat” definitely gave a nod to Fosse. I’m not saying it was a copy, but there were Bowler Hats and they were Fosse elements present. Should Carrafa forfeit some of his earnings to the Fosse estate? Should Encores be sued? I think we would all agree that the original choreography to “Steam Heat” would be classified as part of the experience.
Hunter Foster
