Urinetown

In this terrific musical with a terrible title, a prolonged drought has led the government of a Gotham-like city to partner with a private corporation to regulate water usage by requiring citizens to use only public bathrooms…for a steep fee! This bitingly fun Tony Award-winning musical satire astutely and hilariously intersects the climate crisis, corporate America’s mismanagement and social irresponsibility, and an economic system designed to exploit its marginalized citizens. A technological innovation will bring this production beyond the Bing Stage across campus and around the world as part of USC’s 2022-23 Visions & Voices season.

Mixing this show was one of the highlights of my time in college at USC. It was timed with the mixing class that is part of the curriculum, so I was fully immersed in mixing for musicals for an entire semester. The sound designer on the show, Belle Alatorre, cued the script, as I was just learning how to do that when it needed to happen and was fresh off of designing The Winter’s Tale. We had a really good time on this show, and the cast and company was very special. A lot of learning took place on my end, including how to communicate issues with cueing that we were able to work though and solve, how to mix two people who are both singing and are very close together, and the importance of hearing vocals over needing it to sound perfect. Once we opened, Belle was off to the next incredible thing, and I was left in charge of our team of three A2s, who were fabulous, and learned how to work with them and lead them so that the show went off without a hitch.