Kathy Simpson says she’s sorry.
The president of the South Simcoe Theatre company has removed publicity signs for the troupe’s first play of the season “Urinetown”, which had been posted on the roads entering into the village. The notices were placed just under “Welcome to Cookstown” plaques welcoming people to town.
Simpson says she received a call from a local businessperson saying some residents were distressed because the sign was so close to the official village greeting.
“Allegedly, people called up the businessperson and asked ‘Why is Cookstown being called Urinetown’,” Simpson says.
Ironically, Urinetown was not the SST’s selection committee’s first choice for this season’s premiere play.
“Our first choice was ‘Footloose’, then ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, but we couldn’t secure the rights,” Simpson says. “We were going for a warm, fuzzy production. Urinetown was our third choice. We needed to do our marketing quickly. We thought producing Urinetown was good timing with all the new awareness of water quality and funding for the cleanup of Lake Simcoe. We thought it would be something special. If the play was, ‘Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’, there would be no problem with the title.”
The Tony-award winning production deals with an environmentally-relevant issue, the conservation of water resources.
Urinetown is a mythical city where the government has taken total control of water.
“The message of the play is let’s be good stewards of the environment,” Simpson says. “If you don’t take care of what you have, you might lose it. Urinetown has a lot of good messages – some humourous, some tragic.”
Coun. Lynn Dollin, who is also head of the Ontario Source Water Protection agency, says Urinetown “fits in well” with her new portfolio.
“I know it’s meant to be satirical, but Cookstown hasn’t seen a building permit in 20 years because of water issues,” Dollin says. “Urinetown has local relevance. Potato producers and other agricultural users are concerned because of low water levels. At first blush, if people don’t have any idea what the play is about, once you understand the concept, it takes on a whole new meaning. I can imagine the people who wrote the play wanted to grab people’s attention with the title. The name certainly does that.”
The publicity signs were removed “because we didn’t want to offend business owners,” Simpson says. “If they don’t understand Urinetown, it’s our job to educate them. We draw people from Toronto, Aurora, Schomberg, Midhurst and all over. Our box office person, Candy, always directs people to where to eat or shop in Cookstown. We don’t want local businesspeople to look at us as social pariahs.
“When you’re in a small community, you need to get along with each other. We wanted to keep our neighbours happy. But we’re very excited about Urinetown and our upcoming season.”
For tickets to see Urinetown call 705-458-4432 or visit southsimcoetheatre.com
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