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And for most of his first decade in Hanover, the veteran teacher, actor and director waited for the right moment to stage with students an adaptation of the Tony-winning satire of a near-future dystopia in which years of drought have led to the outlawing of private toilets and the institution of pay-per-use toilets owned by a private company.
That moment of, um, urgency, arrives at the college’s Moore Theater on Friday night for a two-weekend run.
“For this winter’s production, I was looking for something that had, underneath its satiric tone, a consequential underbelly to it, a fairly powerful message in the right kind of package,” Horton said during a telephone interview this week. “It’s a very timely piece now, even more than when it came out. In the last 16 years, we are at an ever more critical time with sustainability on our planet, with growing populations and limited resources, and issues of who benefits from those resources.”
The chief beneficiary in the story is Caldwell B. Cladwell, who runs the Urine Good Company with the backing of the local government in general and the police force in particular. His workforce includes Penelope Pennywise, who collects payments at the filthiest urinal in the poorest part of town.
“I looked at the vocal range for the female parts and … I was particularly taken with Pennywise and her song, It’s a Privilege to Pee,” Dartmouth senior Naomi Lazar wrote during an exchange of emails this week. “She is a fierce woman who has a tough job to do, and is not afraid to be disliked.”
Among the customers with whom Pennywise takes a hard line is Little Becky Two-Shoes, a poor young woman expecting a baby and struggling to scrape together the money when she needs a pit stop. The injustice of the situation prompts her to join the revolt against the monopoly.
“I’m thrilled to be playing a scrappy, cynical and yet hopeful character with a strong call to justice whose arc from powerlessness to powerful fascinates me,” junior Virginia Ogden wrote in an exchange of emails this week. “Once she gets a push in the right direction, she does not stop until she gets what she wants, by any means necessary.”
While Ogden had seen a production of Urinetown at a theater in her Connecticut hometown a few years ago, she didn’t picture herself playing a role in it someday.
“The first time I saw the show … I thought, ‘Wow! What a depressing and unlikely musical!’ ” Ogden recalled. “But now that I am older and approaching the script with three years of collegiate education and during such a heated political climate, themes of sustainability, government and capitalism really speak to me. … In its ridiculousness and hilarity, the play is frighteningly and hauntingly relevant.”
Horton said he decided to take on the play last spring, while the presidential campaign lurched from subject to subject, except the future of the planet — unless you counted occasional denunciations of the phenomenon of climate change as a hoax.
“I’m mystified by the distrust of science, and everything that entails,” Horton said. “This play doesn’t knock you over the head with what it has to say, but there is a real sense of importance. It asks us to carefully examine how much of a challenge we really face.
“It’s going to become one of the great issues of our time.”
The theater department at Dartmouth College opens its production of
Best Bets
The Sharon-based music producer and Americana musician Jim Rooney teams up with Turnip Truck to perform the monthly Corinth Coffeehouse show at Corinth Town Hall on Saturday night at 7. Admission is by donation, with proceeds going to Corinth’s Northeast Slopes family ski area.
The Afro-Andean roots group Viva Quetzal joins Dartmouth College’s World Music Percussion Ensemble to play dance music in the Hop’s Alumni Hall on Saturday night at 8. Admission is $10. For more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-727-3304.
Law students stage Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues at Vermont Law School on Friday night at 7:30, with proceeds benefiting the nonprofit Safeline agency’s programs for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. A pre-performance reception starts at 7 . Tickets cost $5 in advance and $8 at the door. To learn more, visit orgsites.com/vt/safeline1.
Pianists Elizabeth Borowsky and Daniel Weiser play Paris music hall- and cabaret-accented works of turn-of-the-20th-century composers at two venues over the weekend, as part of the Classicopia series of chamber recitals.
Borowsky, of Lebanon, and Weiser, a former Dartmouth professor now living in Baltimore, kick off the mini-tour at Damon Hall in Hartland on Friday night at 7:30. Tickets at the door cost $20.
On Saturday night at 7:30, the duo will share the Steinway at Lebanon’s First Congregational Church, where admission is $10 for church members and $20 for the general public. Discounts on advance tickets to all shows are available by visiting classicopia.org.
The Pillsbury Slow Boys provide the soundtrack for dancing during a Mardi Gras celebration at Barrett Hall in South Strafford on Saturday night at 7. Tickets ($5 to $25) are available at Coburn’s General Store in South Strafford as well as at the door. Proceeds go toward restoring the stained-glass windows at the village’s Universalist church. To learn more, visit strafforduu.org.
The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble and the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble join forces in a concert on the theme of “Dancing in the Wind” on Sunday afternoon at 2, in Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center in Hanover. Admission costs $10. To learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-727-3304.
Theater/Performance Art
The Parish Players wrap up their 11th annual Ten-Minute Play Festival at the Eclipse Grange on Thetford Hill with performances at 7:30 tonight, Friday night and Saturday night and at 3 on Sunday afternoon. Reservations are advised, after last Sunday’s show was cancelled because of the snowstorm. To order tickets ($10 to $15) and learn more, visit parishplayers.org or call 603-785-4344.
Northern Stage’s production of Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers is in previews at 7:30 tonight and Friday night before the official opening at 7:30 Saturday night. The play runs through March 5. For tickets ($14 to $54) and more information, visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
The Claremont Opera House hosts its annual talent show for aspiring actors, dancers and singers on Saturday night at 7:30. Admission is $10. To learn more, call 603-542-4433 or visit the box office in City Hall.
The Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph holds auditions on Wednesday for its 10th annual Mini Mud variety show. Singers, dancers and actors ages 6 to 18 can secure an audition time by emailing president@chandler-arts.org or calling 802-748-9402. The show will take place on March 25.
Music
Acoustic roots musicians from around Orange County perform the Cafe Musico concert at West Newbury (Vt.) Hall on Friday night at 7. The lineup includes Newbury banjo player Aaron Johnson, the Bradford-based duo of singer-guitarist Don Sinclair and singer Jenn Grossi, the Wild Roots vocal tandem of Thomas Chapin of Bradford and Rowe Williams of West Newbury, and flat-pick guitarist Doug Perkins of Washington. Proceeds from the gathering ($6 per serving of cornbread and chili, $1 to $2 for drinks, $7 for the concert) will go toward the West Newbury Hall Committee’s effort to buy new curtains for the hall’s stage.
Yankee Chank provides the soundtrack for Cajun Night at Randolph’s Chandler Center for the Arts on Friday night from 7:30 to 10. The festivities, in the Upper Gallery, begin with a spicy supper at 6. To reserve tickets ($8 for dinner alone, $10 for just the show, $15 to attend both) and learn more, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
The Dartmouth College Glee Club sings secular music of 17th- and 18th-century England, including Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen and Handel’s Semele, as well as works of Edward Elgar, John Taverner and Ralph Vaughan Williams, on Saturday afternoon at 3 at the top of Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center in Hanover. Admission is free. To learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-727-3304.
The Upper Valley Chords and Hanover High School’s Footnotes are among the musicians scheduled to perform a concert benefiting City Center Ballet on Saturday night at 7 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in White River Junction. Admission is by donation. To learn more, visit citycenterballet.org.
Dance
The roots ensemble Old Sam Peabody sets the rhythm and Delia Clark calls the steps during the community contradance that BarnArts will host at Barnard Town Hall on Saturday night at 6. Admission is $5 per individual dancer or $10 per family. To learn more, visit barnarts.org.
Bar and Club Circuit
The roots ensemble Dan & The Dinosaurs perform at the tavern of the Lyme Inn tonight at 6.
Singer Cyn Barrette, bassist Peter Concilio and pianist Bob Merrill fill the Canoe Club with jazz tonight from 6:30 to 9:30. Following them to the microphone with 6:30 to 9:30 shows are the Sensible Shoes duo of Barbara Blaisdell and Tim Utt on Friday and pianist Gillian Joy on Saturday.
The Boston-based country ensemble Colin Axxxwell appears at the Taverne on the Square in Claremont tonight starting at 7, followed by singer-guitarist Andrew Merzi on Friday night at 7.
The Shugamakers pull into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30 to play a set of bluegrass and New England-inflected country. Next to the microphone are Road Trash with a dose of heavy metal on Friday night at 10, the Burlington-based alt-rockers of Binger on Saturday night at 9:30 and the Ruby Street folk duo of Doug and Shelly Parker on Tuesday night at 6.
Arthur James plays and sings the blues at Bentley’s in Woodstock tonight at 7. And next Thursday night at 7, singer-songwriter Guy Burlage commands the microphone.
Bassist Peter Concilio, keyboards player Bruce Sklar and drummer Pete Michelinie play jazz at the SILO Distillery in Windsor on Friday night at 5:30.
The Conniption Fits kick off the Salt hill Pubs’ monthlong countdown to St. Patrick’s Day with a performance at the Lebanon venue on Friday night at 9. And on Saturday night at 9, rocker Chris Powers plays an acoustic set.
The weekend lineup at Salt hill Pub in Hanover features the Americana/country ensemble Builder of the House in its debut at the venue on Friday night at 9. At the same hour on Saturday night, the B3 Brotherhood rallies ‘round Tom Caselli’s Hammond B3 organ for a set of rhythm-and-blues and funk.
Rocker Dave Bundza plays an acoustic set at Newport’s Salt hill Pub on Friday night at 9, and Borderstone performs its mix of folk and rock on Saturday night at 9.
Still Hill rocks Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night starting at 9.
Soulfix jazzes up Friday night, starting at 9, at Crossroads Bar & Grill in South Royalton.
Singer-songwriter Laura Simon performs at the Stone Arch Bakery in Lebanon on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Out on a Limb plays the Bluegrass Brunch at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover on Sunday from noon to 3. And Bow Thayer plays his weekly set of Americana at the venue on Wednesday night at 7:30.