‘Urinetown’ employs guest choreographer

This fall, Marlborough School’s performing arts community welcomes guest choreographer Grasan Kingsberry for its production of “Urinetown.” The musical imagines a world where a major water shortage causes private bathrooms to be banned and requires citizens to pay for public toilets. For the first time since the production “Mamma Mia” from the 2021-22 school year, the fall musical will feature Kingsberry as a guest choreographer.

Kingsberry went to high school in Charlotte, N.C., where he focused on performing arts from sophomore to senior year. He then attended The Julliard School in New York City, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in dance. After graduating, he began performing on Broadway, where he worked on 11 productions. One of them was the original production of “The Color Purple,” for which he earned a Daytime Emmy and a Grammy Award. Currently, he teaches at the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California. He has had a lot of experience in the past with teaching and educating performers of all ages.

“Urinetown” directors Sarah Foster and Kristi Schultz have opted to involve a choreographer in this show for a variety of reasons.

“For this show, Ms. Schultz and I realized how difficult it was for her to choreograph and partially direct, and me to direct,” Foster said. “It was just too many things for us.”

Kingsberry will be choreographing five dance numbers in the show along with assisting with more complex movement sequences, such as fight scenes.

“As a choreographer and as a creative, I just try to be authentic to the storytelling as it makes sense to me,” Kingsberry said.

Some challenges that the production has faced are scheduling, the introduction of a new person involved in the show and the flow between the different scenes and numbers.

“It can happen that it feels like a really stark difference between the musical numbers and the scenes,” Foster said. “You have to really make sure that because different people are doing these different things that you are all in agreement of what the style and language of this piece looks like.”

Students in the cast of “Urinetown” have enjoyed the temporary addition of Kingsberry to the performing arts department.

“[Having a guest choreographer] brings a new perspective to the show and I really like that,” Carrara ’29 said.

Though the name may be misleading for people who are not familiar with the musical, “Urinetown” conveys a deeper message about social justice and other societal issues.

“It certainly talks about a lot of social and political issues and it just felt like being able to address those things and having a good time at the same time would be kind of a nice way to acknowledge what’s going on in the world and also be able to have some laughter and lightness about it,” Schultz said.

Those involved in the production of “Urinetown” want to ensure that people are not discouraged from seeing the show because of its unconventional name.

“It’s about more than just pee,” Schultz said.