70 students participated in various capacities:  technical theater: props, costumes, lights, sound, set build, running crew, stage management, choreography, poster design; and performance.

Bellarmine Drama, a co-curricular program, operates solely outside of the school day. Auditioning in late-December and building and rehearsing after school in January, Monday-Friday from 3:00-5:00pm in order to put together a complex show in just about 8 weeks. This project-based learning offers students real lessons in creative problem-solving, communication, adaptability, and in working together. As Mr. Forier, our director reminded us throughout the process: “We are an ensemble.”

When Urinetown the Musical opened on Broadway in September 2001, the world as we knew it had just changed. Seven years later, in 2008, Bellarmine offered its first production of Urinetown. A quarter of a century later, our society is still struggling with many of the issues raised in this witty, satirical show. As a Catholic school in the Jesuit tradition, Bellarmine is called to form our students in a variety of ways: in the classroom, through service, on the field or court or pitch or track, and also in the theater.

In 2018, the worldwide Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) engaged in a discernment process to prioritize resources across their apostolates: universities, schools, parishes, foreign missions, and social justice works. The Jesuits’ process resulted in four Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) that set priorities for Jesuit works, like Bellarmine.

The choice of Urinetown for Bellarmine’s spring musical reflects a desire to amplify the last two of these preferences: Walking with the Excluded and Care for Our Common Home.  

It is in this spirit that Bellarmine Drama offers Urinetown the Musical, a show which highlights the importance of caring for the least among us; for our common home, the natural environment, and offering an implicit call to action.

We hope that the questions raised by this show will continue to invite further discernment in each of us you and conversation within our community about how we might better care for our common home and walk with the excluded.