You're in for a good show

Harlequin, MCLA's student-run musical theater club, will present Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis's "Urinetown: The Musical," winner of three Tony Awards. Performances will take place at 8 p.m. on March 21st through March 24th. All performances will be held in the Venable Theater. Tickets are free and can be reserved by calling the MCLA Theatre box office at (413) 662-5123.

The idea for "Urinetown" was born in the spring of 1995 when Greg Kotis, traveling in Europe, encountered pay-per-use toilets at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. It was then that the musical's central idea hit him: a Gotham-like city where all the toilets were controlled by a greedy, crooked corporation with no concern for the poor, bladder-oppressed masses.

According to Kotis, the show "was created in a spirit of defiance against what's typically offered up as stage worthy in America today." The show parodies many popular musicals and theater conventions and offers social commentary about the American economy, the division between rich and poor and the abuse of the environment.