Premiering at the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999, this affectionate parody of musicals from “Les Miserables” to “The Threepenny Opera” was written by Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis and ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2004, winning Tony Awards for best book and score.


Ephrata Performing Arts Center snapped up local first-run rights when they became available earlier this year. “It’s exactly the kind of campy humor we’re known for,” said EPAC artistic director Ed Fernandez, who also directs the show. “You could say it’s our niche.”


The story concerns a 20-year drought that has turned water into the new gold. Bodily fluids are regulated and recycled until a grassroots revolution takes a stand against the high cost of enforced public amenities.


“People pee, and we’re going to sing about it,” proclaimed cast member Brian McCreary. The Lancaster-based actor is part of a vibrant community cast, and that’s right where he wants to be.


“ ‘Urinetown’ looks at living for today versus planning for the future,” he said. “I’m right there in my own life, at a place where I need to look at reality.”


McCreary’s acting life started when he played Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” at Conestoga Valley High School. He graduated from CV in 1982 and earned a theater and communications degree from Temple University in 1986.


Since then, he’s played at some spectacular venues, including the rim of the Grand Canyon and Alcatraz Island on a national park tour of “Four Little Pages,” a musical celebrating the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. He’s worked at Sight & Sound in Strasburg, playing both Satan and Jesus, though not in the same show.


Offstage, he earned his teaching certification from Millersville University, worked in a group home for people with cognitive disabilities and worked with students with emotional disturbances in School District of Lancaster.


It was two years after he returned to the United States from a 1997-98 stint as an exchange teacher in Sano, Japan, that his life was interrupted by a diagnosis of metastatic melanoma. A “funny-looking mole” on his back, spotted in the dressing rooms backstage at Sight & Sound, led to three major surgeries to remove tumors. There also was a 12-month course of the drug Interferon, which McCreary said makes you feel as if you have the flu 24/7.


Finally emerging from the energy-sapping treatments in 2003, McCreary decided “I wanted to live before I died.” So he went to New York City and auditioned for several national tours, landing a role in “Kiss Me Kate,” only to turn it down when more cancer surfaced.


Last year, McCreary tentatively started to find his way back to where he wants to be. He now works as a long-term substitute in an alternative-learning program in Donegal School District and last year played lead roles for Theater of the Seventh Sister (“Billy Bishop”) and EPAC (“Fifth of July”).


“This is the cleanest I’ve been (of cancer) since 2000,” McCreary said before heading to rehearsals for his role as Narrator Officer Lockstock in the show the cast fondly calls “Tinkletown.” So far this year, McCreary, 42, has played Thaddeus Stevens at the Fulton and Long John Silver at Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre.


“I’m not living in a panic anymore. All I want is do what I love to do. In January, with two years clean, I’ll officially be in remission.”


The “Urinetown” cast sings: “Don’t give us tomorrow, just give us today.”


McCreary’s holding out for tomorrow.


“Urinetown” opens Thursday at Ephrata Performing Arts Center in Tom Grater Memorial Park and runs through Oct. 21. Shows start at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee Oct. 15. Tickets cost $20. For more information, call 733-7966.