11th Hour Theatre Company to Present URINETOWN for Next Step Concert Series

11th Hour Theatre Company kicks off its 12th season with its Next Step Concert Series and a performance of the hilarious musical Urinetown. With Music and Lyrics by Mark Hollmann and Book and Lyrics by Greg Kotis, this concert reading of this popular musical will run October 21-23 at The Arden's Studio Theatre at the Hamilton Family Arts Center. 62 N. Second Street. Tickets cost $19-34 and are available online at www.11thhourtheatrecompany.org or by phone 267-987-9865.

In a not-too-distant future, a 20-year drought has led to a government-enforced ban on private bathrooms. The citizens must use public amenities, regulated by an evil corporation that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. Out of the squalor, a hero begins a revolution to lead them all to freedom! Urinetown is a hilarious musical satire of populism and politics, as well as musical theatre itself!

Urinetown is directed by 11th Hour Producing Artistic Director Michael Philip O'Brien. Carl Smith plays Officer Lockstock. Jenna Pinchbeck is playing Hope Cladwell. Mike Dorsey is playing Bobby Strong. Katie Johantgen plays Little Sally. Nancie Sanderson is Penelope Pennywise. Christopher Sapienza is Caldwell B. Cladwell. The Ensemble is: Michaela Shuchman, Aaron Bell, Jenna Kuerzi, Connor McAndrews, Matthew Mastronardi, Molly Tower, and Elana Camp.

Michael Borton is the Music Director and playing the keyboard. Chris Welte, Sean McCusker, David Weiss and Ben Goldman fill out the rest of the band. Melissa Erlick is the Stage Manger. John Kolbinski is the Sound Designer and Robin Stamey is the Lighting Designer.

The Next Step Concert Series is innovative, inspiring, and intimate. New and seldom seen musicals are stripped down to their very essence...good storytelling and incredible music. The rest of the 2016-2017 Next Step Concert Series includes: Five Points by Douglas Lyons, Ethan Pakchar and Harrison David Rivers; Road Show by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman; and Broadcast by Nathan Christensen and Scott Murphy.

Urinetown Schedule
Friday, October 21, 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 22, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 23, 3:00 p.m.

11th Hour Theatre Company is the only company in Philadelphia dedicated to producing all musicals, all the time. Intimate by design, 11th Hour creates a lasting experience with the audience by producing character-driven musical theatre.

11th Hour produces a broad spectrum of musicals that fill a niche in the diverse Philadelphia theatre landscape: musicals that spark the creativity of artists and the imaginations of audiences. Over the past eleven seasons, they have produced seventeen full-scale musicals, nine of which were Philadelphia premieres. In addition to the World Premiere of their first commission, Field Hockey Hot, the company has contributed to the development of several new musicals beginning with Angst, a ten-minute musical that premiered in the Spark Festival of 2005. 11th Hour produced the American premiere of Austentatious that went on to success at the New York Musical Theatre Festival; and a 29-hour reading of Fantasy Football, the Musical? before its production at New York University. Both Austentatious and Fantasy Football have since been published and are now professionally licensed. In the fall of 2014, 11th Hour partnered with University of the Arts to workshop Persephone Unplugged, a new twist on the classic Greek myth. With support from the Independence Foundation, 11th Hour recently commissioned their second musical from a local writing team, a Civil War-themed project currently titled Something Like a War.

11th Hour has received a total of forty-six Barrymore Award nominations. Their work has been recognized with eight awards, including two consecutive awards for "Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical" (The Bomb-itty of Errors, The World Goes 'Round), and several individual awards for their artists. Founding member Steve Pacek was also the proud recipient of the 2012 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist. In 2013, 11th Hour became the first-ever recipient of the June and Steve Wolfson Award for an Evolving Theater.

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