'Urinetown' gets word: Time to go

NEW YORK -- "Urinetown," the unlikely musical hit that has been occupying Henry Miller's Theater on West 43rd Street for more than two years under the threat of eviction, has finally gotten the bad news. The producers were told on Monday that the show would have to leave the theater by Feb. 15 because a 57-story skyscraper was about to be built on the Avenue of the Americas between 42nd and 43rd Streets, a site that includes the theater.

The show's future is unclear. Two of its producers, Michael Rego, of the Araca Group, and Michael David, of Dodger Stage Holding, said "Urinetown" could possibly move to another theater but that there were complications, among them that no other Broadway houses were currently available.

A move to off-Broadway is not out of the question, but economic factors, including union contracts, make this possibility "a long shot," David said.

Rego added: "We always knew this would be happening. We knew that the building would be coming down. And now it's coming down for real."

The news adds just one more peculiar chapter to an anomalous theater story. A faux-Brechtian comedy and political satire about a futuristic world in which certain bodily functions are taxed, "Urinetown" was written by two relatively unknown Chicagoans, Greg Kotis and Mark Hollman.

It began life at the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and climbed the theatrical food chain to off-Broadway and, finally, Broadway, where its opening was delayed by the 9/11 attacks. More than two years later, it is still going strong. In fact, the producers, who said they were expecting "Urinetown" to last perhaps another year, were about to announce that the show had recouped its $3.7 million capital investment when they learned that it would have to leave the theater.

"The little show that could actually did," Rego said, adding that a full American tour was now traveling and that the musical, which has already been produced twice in South Korea, was expected to open new productions next year in London, Toronto, Tokyo and Melbourne.

The producers emphasized that their relations with the Durst Organization -- the developer of the site and the owner of the theater -- and in particular with Douglas Durst, its president, were amicable, and that they had received the news without rancor. When they first took over the theater, they said, they were promised only six months, which seemed like plenty, given the nature of the show and the crapshoot of producing musicals on Broadway.

"Who knew it was going to last two years?" David said. "Douglas Durst was kind enough to let us make his life miserable for this long. The organization has been unbelievably supportive and generous, and we couldn't be more grateful. It's just that we got to like it there." For his part, Durst, interviewed by phone Tuesday , expressed admiration for the producers and their show.

Henry Miller's Theater, now a roomy, suggestively squalid auditorium, was named for an English-born actor and producer who had it built for his own performances and productions. It opened in 1918, and has had a motley history since. Major productions that have had their premieres there include Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" (1938); T.S. Eliot's "Cocktail Party" (1950) and "Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution" (1954).

In 1997 the theater was the first home of the current Broadway revival of "Cabaret." In the 1970s and '80s, it was, among other things, a pornographic movie house and a nightclub. Some 55 performances from now, "Urinetown" will become the theater's longest- running tenant, surpassing "The Moon Is Blue," which ran for 924 performances in the early '50s. The facade has landmark status. A new theater will be rebuilt as part of the new building, which is scheduled to open in 2008. The original theater had 950 seats in 12,000 square feet. When it is rebuilt, he added, its original seating capacity will be restored. (It currently holds 631.) To accommodate an audience of that size today, he said, will require 35,000 square feet.

"The theater we intend to build will be the finest playhouse on Broadway," Durst said.

One reason "Urinetown" had been allowed to remain in the theater so long was that construction of the new skyscraper, which is to be the New York headquarters of Bank of America, had been delayed by the refusal of two property owners on the block to sell their space. Now, Durst said, he is confident that the state will condemn those properties, allowing the developers to buy or lease them for a nominal sum. Durst said he expected demolition to begin in March.

"This building is being held together with scotch tape and rubber bands," he said. "We've really been pushing it by letting them stay in as long as they have."

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