REVIEW: Trustus Theatre's URINETOWN - THE MUSICAL

by Beth DeHart

If Saturday Night Live’s effete city correspondent Stefon Meyers reviewed Trustus Theatre’s production of Urinetown: The Musical, which opened last weekend, he might say something like, “This show has everything! A flawless live band, cartoon-level physical comedy, eye-rolling puns, an adorable unparented little girl, a strangely parented big girl, and a set that is both dirty and clean at the same time… You don’t want to miss it!”

And he’d be right!

Urinetown: The Musical – a name that is already intriguing – is a Tony award winning musical written by Greg Kotis with music by Mark Hollman. It debuted on Broadway in 2001 and is set in a dystopian fictional town severely impacted by a 20-year draught. The antagonist is the for-profit business, “Urine Good Company,” whose tagline is, “We care where you go.”  The primary conflict of the story is that in response to the oppressive draught conditions, “Urine Good Company” established public restrooms which require payment – tariffs – for community members to use the amenities. The story is a cautionary Eat-the-Rich revolutionary tale about overuse of critical resources like water. But for the punsters out there, the puns alone are a good enough reason to see the show.

The play is directed by Dewey Scott-Wiley whose fingerprint is notable throughout – slow motion moments, consistent meaningful business, believable and entertaining characterizations – all bring this satirical story to life. The audience is engaged throughout by the visual, musical, and physical presentation of the creative script. Kudos also to Sheldon Paschal for her additions to the show as Assistant Director.

The cast features 21 actors who use the space of the set quite effectively - a credit to Ashley Jensen, Scenic Designer, who establishes both horizontal and vertical interest on the stage. The set is not fussy; it’s built to depict the desperation of the moment and to make scene changes happen as efficiently as possible. Kudos to Marc Hurst for lighting design that supports this minimalist set. Hurst’s Lighting, alongside Sound Design by Jacob Olano with Sound Engineer Matt Pound, were all excellent. “The Band,” conducted by Ayush Joshi, is hidden in the rafters, allowing tiny glimpses of movement which is fun for the audience.

Cast members Jonathan Monk, Kevin Bush, Lauren Roberts, and Dayna Arnett made the audience look particularly forward to their characters’ distinct moments in the spotlight. A younger cast member who also carried the story along beautifully was Te’Jah Beaton as Little Sally.

Several Urinetown team members are currently in the process of studying various theater-related skills, including acting, musical theater, stage management, and theater technology and design. The energy these cast and crew members bring to the production is notable. Olan Domer as Bobby Strong and River Dively as Hope Cladwell also add believability and heart to the performance. In the dance department, Daniel Mason, in the role of Hot Blades Harry, is a stand-out!

A couple of elements that detracted a bit from the otherwise excellent quality of the show included some questionable casting choices and dance performances. Some of the older character roles are played by much younger actors, which requires the audience to work much harder to suspend their disbelief and fully engage in the show. While most of the performances remain completely believable throughout, a few were, sadly, unconvincing.

Overall, Trustus Theatre’s production of Urinetown is well worth the price of the ticket. The production is yet another example of the excellent quality of local theater available in Columbia, SC.

Grab your tickets and empty your bladders… You’ll be happy about both!

~~~

(One recommendation: It could be argued that an opportunity was missed by not charging audience members a fee to “pay to pee.” Not only would this have reinforced the message of the play, it also could have served as a real-time fundraiser for Food Not Bombs, the non-profit being supported by the show.) 

Urinetown: The Musical runs June 19 - July 19, 2026. Tickets are available at Trustus.org or the number on the poster above.

REVIEW – "A Pointy Reckoning”: Trustus Theatre's The Crucible by Jon Tuttle

In his autobiography, Timebends, playwright Arthur Miller described McCarthyism—the hysteria that gripped postwar America in the 1950s—as “the inexorable march of the cheerful totalitarian patriots” who reprehended “all that was not simple to understand, all that seemed foreign, all that implied something slightly less reassuring than that America stood innocent and pure in a vile and sinister world beyond its borders.”  During the attendant hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Miller “saw the civilities of public life deftly stripped from the body politic like the wings of insects or birds by maniac children, and great and noble citizens branded traitors.” 

During that dark chapter in American history—engineered by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) on behalf of his party—Miller was called to answer for his involvement with left wing intellectual circles and to surrender the names of his commie comrades.  Whereas some of his contemporaries, including friend and collaborator Elia Kazan, willingly surrendered their integrity, Miller refused to “use the name of another person to bring trouble on him.”  He was therefore convicted, in 1957, of contempt of Congress, a decision whose reversal the following year triggered the dismantling of the HUAC and caused Edward R. Murrow to conclude that “No one can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all accomplices.”  By then, McCarthy had been condemned by the Senate and had died of cirrhosis. 

In the meantime, Miller’s The Crucible (1953) had opened Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Play.  It was not the first play to compare the HUAC to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692; there were at least three others preceding it, including William Carlos Williams’ Tituba’s Children (1950).  But it was by the far the most commercially successful and the only one we still turn to when we need it most.   

“No one can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all accomplices.” — Edward R. Murrow

Hence Trustus Theatre’s current production, which opened on Friday, February 20, to an utterly thunderstruck audience.  It is magnificent. There is indeed so much to admire here that it’s hard to know where to begin, so much to say about each element that it will be hard to know when to stop.

For instance, the acting. The ensemble of nineteen is perfectly choreographed, wholly worthy of one another, and up to the heady challenge posed by Miller’s dialogue, which on the page can smack of melodrama but becomes in their performances nigh operatic.  Names must be named:  Jason Stokes, as John Proctor, inhabits the play’s moral center of gravity with an authority gradually leavened with vulnerability. Stokes’ delivery of Proctor’s famous speech at the end—the one about names being the last vestiges of legacy—is the pitch perfect crescendo it should be.   As Proctor’s goodwife Elizabeth, Ashley Rose Montondo is the deep well of fortitude from which he has always drawn and, ultimately, marvelously, his jury.  Around them, invisible but powerful social forces constrict like nooses, beginning with the Puritan clergy, namely Reverends Parris (played by William Paul Brown), who is nefarious, and Hale (Asaru Buffalo), whose attempts at honorability demonstrate Miller’s desire not to blame religion for absolutely everything. 

 Through the courts’ machinations, the play reveals the worst of America’s timeworn banes: superstition, ignorance, hypocrisy, litigiousness, sanctimony, greed, jingoism, and above all, the threat to bodily autonomy, which starts with the women but comes, like vengeance, for everyone. 

That blame lies largely with his magistrates. Cameron Muccio portrays Judge Hawthorne as an embarrassingly sycophantic Lindsey Graham-like jurist made tumescent by his new power, and this, lest it reads otherwise, is a high compliment.  Muccio proves an apt intern for Steve Harley’s Judge Danforth, whom Miller, in his research, found so sadistic as to be a primary evil. As a primary evil, Harley is superb, primarily because he’s not playing evil at all.  Rather, his Danforth is a man so blindly committed to Puritan jurisprudence that he would gladly “hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law, and an ocean of salt tears could not melt the resolution of the statutes.”  As unfortunate stooges of the court, Logan Keller (as bailiff Ezekiel Cheever) and Adam Hobbs (as marshall John Willard) ably demonstrate the depths to which good men might sink in order to save their own skins.  Through the courts’ machinations, the play reveals the worst of America’s timeworn banes: superstition, ignorance, hypocrisy, litigiousness, sanctimony, greed, jingoism, and above all, the threat to bodily autonomy, which starts with the women but comes, like vengeance, for everyone.  

At stake in all of this is civilization itself, represented here by the townsfolk of Salem, to whom we’ll turn in a minute.  First, though, we must admire the writing. Miller’s legacy needs no championing; he is arguably the foremost American dramatist of the past hundred years—superior, yes, to Eugene O’Neill, owing to the latter’s hopelessness.  Miller is, conversely, very hopeful.  He believes in America’s virtue, and so many of his plays (see also Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, The Price, The American Clock, A View From the Bridge), are embodied warnings about the menace America poses to itself. When you go see The Crucible, which you must (it runs through March 15), watch the way menace metastasizes from rumors and abstractions in the world outside to visitors standing in our dining room.

And so now to the townsfolk, beginning with the least able to defend themselves, like the dispossessed Martha Corey and Sarah Good, (both played by Catherine Bailey); or Ann and Thomas Putnam (Brittany Hammock and Adam Hobbs again) as parishioners so desperately devout they’ll swallow anything; or Francis and Rebecca Nurse (Stann Gwynn and Ilene Fins), he a man powerless to stop the murders sanctioned by his neighbors, she an unreproachable pillar of the community and the best gauge of the magistrates’ bloodlust. 

This reviewer cannot explain how [Hunter] Boyle manages to create such a complex, compelling and complete character, and so concludes it must be sorcery.

Here, a whole paragraph must be devoted to Giles Corey, in history a savvy farmer versed (after much experience) in courtroom protocol, in the play a sometimes comic but ultimately wily and triumphant martyr for the growing resistance against the court.   Corey’s execution and last words, though reported only indirectly onstage, still somehow linger long after the play is over, which testifies to the authority Hunter Boyle brings to the role. This reviewer cannot explain how Boyle manages to create such a complex, compelling and complete character, and so concludes it must be sorcery.

Which brings us, at last, to the witches. The witches are not witches, sorry, they’re just girls, but they writhe exquisitely and do creepy things and are responsible for the most unnerving scene this reviewer has ever witnessed on any stage.   They are Mercy Lewis (played by Meagan Aubuchon), Betty Paris (Chloe Newport), Susanna Walcott (Maryssa Drake), and their Jamaican squad leader Tituba (Nicole Perez).   Particular mention must be made of Kate Anderson’s portrayal of Mary Warren and Kaeleigh Miller’s of Abigail Williams.  Abby is, in history as in the play, the primary architect of the horror visited upon Salem, a girl motivated less by piety than puberty, but made somehow remarkably beguiling in Miller’s portrayal.  Mary begins the play as Abby’s accomplice, but then bravely attempts to save Salem from itself until she is undone by the most unnerving scene this reviewer has ever witnessed on any stage.  The actors playing these five witches, though younger, rise to the level of professionalism evinced by their more experienced castmates and complete an ensemble that is collectively and unequivocally the star of the show. 

Credit for this magic trick goes to director Jayce Tromsness, a Trustus veteran from the Thigpen era and a well-traveled actor/playwright/designer/educator/musician/maybe a witch.  In his hands, The Crucible is a perfectly realized theatrical event.  It begins with a barely audible but still disturbing audio of an interrogation, and ends with a devastating tableau you will not see coming and will never unsee.  Each scene along the way begins with characters staring at us accusingly, which frankly we deserve.  When you go see it, which you must, watch the way lighting designer Marc Hurst deploys shadows, silhouettes, even apparitions to cast a spell, but also explosive flashes to shock us out of it.  Watch the way costumer Adai’Shun Cook transports us from the 17th century into the 21st.   Watch the scene design, particularly the eerily Kandinsky-esque  scrims and flats (Tromsness again) manipulate atmosphere.  Listen to the sounds (Tromsness again, he’s a witch) particularly the cheerful non-existent bird in the most unnerving scene this reviewer has ever witnessed on any stage. And oh: pay close attention to the color red.

And consider, when you go, which you must, Eric Bentley’s observation, in The Dramatic Event, about the timelessness of The Crucible:  “One sits before this play with anything but intellectual detachment. At a moment when we are all being ‘investigated,’ or imagining that we shall be, it is vastly disturbing to see indignant images of investigation on the other side of the footlights. Why one wonders aren't there dozens of plays each season offering such a critical account of the state of the nation?”

NB: As The Crucible includes triggering images/social issues, it is not appropriate for all ages.  Tickets are $35, or $32 for seniors/students/military. 

Jon Tuttle is a member of the Jasper Project’s Board of Directors and the author of The Trustus Collection and South Carolina Onstage. 

REVIEW: TRUSTUS THEATRE'S STUPID FUCKING BIRD

Trustus Theatre opened Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird down on Lady Street on February 9th, under the direction of the theatre’s Executive Director, Jessica Francis Fichter. This play, which is advertised as “kinda based on” Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, is a 2.5-hour experience that is “kinda” a comedy that explores family, love, unfulfilled potential, freedom, destruction, and art (all present in the source material on which it was kinda based). Trustus’ production is a winning moment for the theatre with a talented ensemble, adventurous technical execution and a team that not only had a deep understanding of what they wanted to try to do, but the expertise to make it a reality.  

Chekhov’s play is not essential to the audience’s engagement with Bird. Academics (read: theatre nerds) will enjoy the fun game of compare-and-contrast that this work allows, but the non-historian will be plenty occupied with experiencing the characters’ journeys, interacting with the actors in an environment without a fourth wall, exploring a dialogue regarding the authentic self and inviting their brains to ask, “what is art, why do we make it and why is it vital…or is it?”   

Stupid Fucking Bird concerns a stormy front of romantic and emotional entanglements amongst a family and their friends gathered at a large beach house. Conrad (Patrick Dodds) loves Nina (Cassidy Spencer), but Nina pines for Trigorin (Laurens Wilson) who is dating Conrad’s mom, Emma Arakdina (Erin Wilson). But wait, there’s more! Conrad’s platonic pal Mash (Martha Hearn) languishes for Conrad, and Dev (Cameron Muccio) swoons for Mash. The term “love triangle” doesn't suffice to explain the plot. Perhaps the geometrists in the crowd can do the math.  

As with all Chekhov and related materials, there must be an estate. Enter Dr. Eugene Sorn (Hunter Boyle), for whose attention all of these lover-friends are wrestling. Sorn is the only character who doesn’t have a love interest and is quite often the only sensible person in the room. Sorn’s questioning of whether we are ever our authentic selves is a particularly salient moment in the play.  

While there is a lot of frustration in watching these characters chase their misguided obsessions, the rewarding part of the Stupid Fucking Bird is the opportunity to engage in a discussion about art. Trustus is no stranger to material that has asked Columbia audiences to engage in this conversation (i.e. Yasmina Reza’s Art and Stew’s Passing Strange), and this type of work starts the dialogue within the walls of the theatre that evolves into colorful debate once you’ve cozied up to a bar afterwards.  

Trustus’ Bird has an excellent cast - not a weak link on stage. These are talented actors tackling challenging material, and they are in complete ownership of the proceedings. Patrick Dodds’ has played a wide range of roles since his first appearance at the theatre in 2011, but his portrayal of Conrad has probably been one of the most demanding jobs he’s taken on - and he delivers. Dodds succeeds in making us believe in his journey from obsession to destruction. His monologue towards the end of the first act, combined with the tech that was used, is jarring in the best kind of way.  

Erin and Laurens Wilson, in the roles of Emma and Trig, are a grounding and necessary presence for this cast which otherwise portray forlorn nihilists who refuse to stop thwarting themselves. Cameron Musccio makes a welcome debut on the Thigpen Main Stage with his Dev being an incredibly endearing straight-man-who-gets-the-laughs. Cassidy Spencer and Martha Hearn, as Nina and Mash respectively, turn in anchored performances. Hunter Boyle as Dr. Sorn exhibits more control and firmness than we’ve seen in recent years, and it is a delightful change of pace that leaves us hoping to see Boyle explore more roles like this - because it’s really really good.  

The production team deserves high marks for a finely-tuned scenic,  lighting, media, and sound design package. From moons that seamlessly cross the entire stage, to the simplicity of scene titles - Matt Pound has used different media outputs to make something quite complicated seem seamless. Paired with Marc Hurst’s sizzling lighting and Teddy Palmer’s use of the space as an abstraction of frames - these elements truly make you feel like you’re watching a production that was tailored down to the last stitch. We would also like to note that there is even a Shen Yun poster hidden in the mix (which can lead to a tangential conversation about art after the show). 

Though some music levels could be increased to improve audience-immersion throughout and tattoos could be better covered-up (or not covered?) as to not distract, Stupid Fucking Bird is a tight vehicle for the actors, designers, and audience. This is probably due to the work of Director Jessica Francis Fichter. We are very glad her voice is more prominent in Columbia’s theatre scene these days and look forward to more.  

If you’re into light comedic fare that intends to entertain by way of jazz hands, this is no play for you. However, if you’re just the slightest bit adventurous, enjoy conflict and the promise of a post-show arts salon: trust Trustus with this play. This is the kind of work that the theatre’s co-founders intended the theatre to produce, and true to form - whether you actually like the play or not - this is the only place you can experience work like it in these parts. Stupid Fucking Bird runs through February 24th at Trustus (520 Lady St.), and you can get your tickets to make up your own mind about this production at www.trustus.org. 

(edited 2/11/24)