Original Urinetown Director Cottons to New Material at Fringe

By Robert Simonson
12 Aug 2004

Long before Urinetown composer Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis met John Rando—the man who won a Tony Award for staging the Broadway production of the show—there was Joseph P. McDonnell.

McDonell was the man who staged the original 1999 New York City International Fringe Festival production of the satirical tuner, which played to capacity audiences at the (now defunct) Present Company Theatorium, prompting the producing organization The Araca Group to take notice.

Now McDonell is back at the Fringe with a new piece, High Cotton. No musical, High Cotton is a farce set in 1950s Mississippi. "If Lear’s conniving daughters lived in an antebellum mansion with a saucy black maid, and a hot handyman," reads a press release, "they would be the Privys of writer Lance Werth’s 'Coon Fields' Plantation.

In the cast are Flotilla Debarge, Roland Johnson, Ivanna Cullinan, Claire Alpern, Cole Kazdin, Peter Maris, and Eric C. Bailey. The show is produced by Meredith Lucio for Tex in the City, LLC.

High Cotton will play the Black Box at 440 Studios, 440 Lafayette. All tickets are $15. For tickets visit www.FringeNYC.org or call (212) 279-4488.