[1] It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics.

Urinetown debuted at the New York International Fringe Festival, and then was produced Off-Broadway at the American Theatre for Actors from May 6, 2001, to June 25, 2001.

The musical then opened on Broadway at Henry Miller's Theatre,[2] running from September 20, 2001, through January 18, 2004, totaling 25 previews and 965 performances.

The original cast included Hunter Foster (as Bobby Strong, later replaced by Tom Cavanagh), Jeff McCarthy (as Officer Lockstock), Nancy Opel (as Penelope Pennywise), John Cullum (as Caldwell B. Cladwell), Jennifer Laura Thompson (as Hope Cladwell), Spencer Kayden (as Little Sally), John Deyle (as Senator Fipp), and Ken Jennings (as Old Man Strong/Hot Blades Harry).

A national tour starring Christiane Noll and Tom Hewitt began in San Francisco, California, on June 13, 2003.

[3] A production began performances at Chicago's Mercury Theater in March 2006 and closed in May 2006,[4] followed by New Line Theatre in St. Louis in 2007.

The characters of Officer Lockstock and Little Sally are featured in what has become a yearly tradition at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS annual Gypsy of the Year benefit concert, in which the characters – portrayed by actors Jennifer Cody and Don Richard, both of whom understudied the roles in the original cast – perform a short comedy sketch making fun of current Broadway shows.

The cast featured Kane Alexander (Bobby Strong), Shane Bourne (Officer Lockstock), Lisa McCune (Hope Cladwell), Rhonda Burchmore (Penelope Pennywise) and Gerry Connolly (Caldwell B.

The Sydney season retained the principal cast from Melbourne, with the exception of David Campbell taking over the role of Bobby.

In 2024, another Danish production opened March 22 at Østre Gasværk Teater, Copenhagen, notably starring Kurt Ravn as Caldwell B.

The production featured Jordan Fisher as Bobby, Christopher Fitzgerald as Barrel, Greg Hildreth as Lockstock, Keala Settle as Pennywise, Stephanie Styles as Hope, and Rainn Wilson as Cladwell.

[12] Taran Killam had originally been cast as Lockstock but had to drop out of the show due to his Pacific Palisades home burning down during the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.

A traveling student on a budget, he encountered a pay toilet and began writing shortly thereafter, joining with Mark Hollmann for the journey to Broadway.

Initially, no production companies were interested in optioning the musical, but finally the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theatre group from Chicago, agreed to produce Urinetown for their 1999–2000 season.

Playwright David Auburn, a friend of Kotis and Hollmann, came to see the show and immediately called the production company The Araca Group.

The company optioned the musical, and it opened off-Broadway at the American Theatre for Actors, transferring to Broadway in September 2001.

The oppressed masses huddle in line at the poorest, filthiest urinal in town, Public Amenity #9, which is run by the rigid, harshly authoritarian Penelope Pennywise and her assistant, dashing young everyman Bobby Strong.

Trouble ensues when Bobby's father Joseph "Old Man" Strong, unable to afford his daily urinal admission, asks Pennywise to let him go free "just this once."

Convinced that Bobby, Josephine, and Little Sally have been captured, the rebels, particularly Hot Blades Harry and Little Becky Two-Shoes, decide that the best way to get revenge on Cladwell is to kill Hope ("Snuff That Girl").

After he and Pennywise reminisce about their past romance ("We're Not Sorry (Reprise)"), he is led to the roof, shouting that he regrets nothing, and however cruel he might have been, he "kept the pee off the street and the water in the ground", before being thrown off.

The Urine Good Company is renamed "The Bobby Strong Memorial Toilet Authority" and the people are henceforth allowed "to pee whenever they like, as much as they like, for as long as they like, and with whomever they like" ("I See A River").

Lockstock tells the audience that, as draconian as the UGC's rules were, they kept the people from squandering the limited water supply; now, much of the population dies of thirst.

It is insinuated that Hope suffers a terrible death and "Joins her father" at the hand of the people for her actions in depleting the water supply, but the remaining townsfolk will wage on, declaring that "This [the town] is Urinetown!