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Greg Kotis (born 1965/1966) [1] is an American playwright, best known for writing the book and co-writing the lyrics for the musical Urinetown .
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Greg Kotis (born 1965/1966) [1] is an American playwright, best known for writing the book and co-writing the lyrics for the musical Urinetown .
Kotis studied political science at the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the improvisational and sketch comedy group Off-Off Campus. He dropped out when he took a course on the Short Comic Scene, realizing that he wanted to be part of the theatre industry instead. Kotis became a member of the Cardiff Giant Theatre Company and the Neo-Futurists. He moved to New York City in 1995 where he established a branch of the Neo-Futurists together with his wife Ayun Halliday. [2] While moonlighting in fringe theater, Kotis worked as a location scout for the show Law & Order. [3]
By 1998, Kotis had a daughter with his wife, and thus the responsibility of supporting a family. Kotis began writing Urinetown: The Musical, deciding it would be his last work:
"I told myself, I tried to find a life in the theater and we had some fun...it was time to move on. The theater life, particularly our theater life, wasn't making us any money. I would just stick to location scouting and apply myself to making money. With 'Urinetown,' I thought, 'Let's just have one last big laugh.' " [4]
Kotis had gotten the idea for Urinetown when, on an ill-budgeted visit to Paris in 1995, he had to limit his trips to the city's prevalent pay toilets. [5] Urinetown the Musical received ten Tony Award nominations: Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical, Best Musical, Best Actor in a Musical, two nominations for Best Actress in a Musical (Nancy Opel and Jennifer Laura Thompson), Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Best Choreography, and Best Orchestration. Urinetown has been performed around the world and in hundreds of American cities.
He produced the play Pig Farm, which premiered at The Roundabout Theatre in New York City in June 2006. [6] [7]
He wrote a prequel to Urinetown with his theatrical partner Mark Hollmann titled “Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life).” He is also working on a sequel to Urinetown called “Good Luck In Space” meant to close off the "Urinetown Trilogy.”
Kotis married his wife, writer and actor Ayun Halliday, in 1995. They have two children, India (born 1997) and Milo (born 2000). They reside in East Harlem.
Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. The show also parodies musicals such as The Threepenny Opera, The Cradle Will Rock and Les Misérables, and the Broadway musical itself as a form.
George Harvey Presnell was an American actor and singer. He began his career in the mid-1950s as a classical baritone, singing with orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States.
Hunter Foster is an American musical theatre actor, singer, librettist, playwright and director.
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes was the longest running show in the history of theater in Chicago and was the only open-run Off-Off-Broadway show in New York. The show was originally performed by the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theater troupe of which creator Greg Allen was a founding member. Opening in Chicago December 2, 1988, the show ran 50 weekends of the year through 2016. As its subtitle states, the show consists of 30 original short plays performed in 60 minutes. All were written, directed, and performed by an ensemble. The plays tend to be a mixture of autobiography, performance art, and living newspaper.
John Cullum is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in many stage musicals and dramas, including Shenandoah (1975) and On the Twentieth Century (1978), winning the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for each. In 1966 he gained his first Tony nomination as the lead in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, in which he introduced the title song, and more recently received Tony nominations for Urinetown The Musical (2002) and as Best Featured Actor in the revival of 110 in the Shade (2007).
The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988, based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity. Neo-Futurist theatre was inspired in part by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century. Originating in Chicago, branches of the Neo-Futurists also exist in New York City, San Francisco, and London.
Robert Martin is a television and musical theatre actor and writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Lloyd Jeffry Schwartz is an American television producer and writer.
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer and educator. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for his work on the 2002 Broadway revival of Into The Woods. He also won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Play three times and the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Musical twice, most recently in 2024 for The Outsiders.
Frank Joseph Galati was an American director, writer, and actor. He was a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and an associate director at Goodman Theatre. He taught at Northwestern University for many years.
Gregory Gale is a New York-based costume designer.
Ayun Halliday is an American writer and actor.
Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright.
John Rando is an American stage director who won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Urinetown the Musical in 2002. He received his 2nd nomination in the same category in 2015 for the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town.
The Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society of Georgetown University is the oldest continuously running collegiate theatre troupe in the United States. Today, the Society is one of five theatre groups on the Georgetown campus and is entirely student-run. The group continues to provide an opportunity for students to develop artistic, technical, and administrative skills, while performing high-quality theatre in its 173rd season.
Hollmann grew up in Fairview Heights, Illinois, where he graduated from Belleville Township High School East in 1981. He won a 2002 Tony Award and a 2001 Obie Award for his music and lyrics to Urinetown. He is a former ensemble member of the Cardiff-Giant Theatre Company in Chicago. He played trombone for the Chicago art rock band Maestro Subgum and the Whole, and piano for The Second City national touring company and Chicago City Limits, an improv company in New York City. He attended the musical theatre writing workshop Making Tuners at Theatre Building Chicago and the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in New York. While at the Making Turners workshop he began a show with Chicago-based writer Jack Helbig that became "The Girl, the Grouch, and the Goat," which has had professional productions in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Constellation Theatre Company is a non-profit theater company located in Washington, D.C., performing at the Source Theatre, a black box theatre. Since its founding in 2007, Constellation has received several Helen Hayes Awards, including the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in 2009.
Michael Cyril Creighton is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Howard Morris in Only Murders in the Building, Patrick in High Maintenance, Joe Crowley in Spotlight, and his Writers Guild of America Award-winning web series Jack in a Box.
Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life) is a musical that premiered in 2007, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It serves as the first part of a musical trilogy, with the middle installment being Hollmann and Kotis' previous Tony Award-winning musical Urinetown and the final installment being Welcome to Space.
Bruce Coughlin is an American orchestrator and musical arranger. He has won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Obie Award.
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