“When I was 10 years old, I thought it was so awesome that there was a musical called ‘Urinetown,’ ” says Noah Sterling.

Four years later, Sterling is a sophomore at The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry where, next weekend, he’ll play the villainous Caldwell B. Cladwell in “Urinetown.”

“I play him as your stereotypical bad guy, the guy you love to hate,” says Sterling, who lives in New Rochelle and is perfecting his sneer.

Cladwell is the boss at UGC, the company that forces people to pay to … well … you know the title.

There is opposition to the global conglomerate, prompting Cladwell to sing one of Sterling’s favorite songs, “Don’t Be the Bunny,” in which he tells his innocent daughter, Hope, a story about little bunnies meeting untimely ends – all to illustrate that resistance is futile.

Hope, of course, finds love with Bobby Strong, the leader of the resistance. Other characters include a street urchin named Little Sally, and one of Cladwell’s enforcers, Officer Lockstock.

Jetson Leder-Luis plays Lockstock, who narrates the story.

“He’s the glue of the show,” says Leder-Luis. “He starts and ends both acts. And he’s the one who brings the show to this sort of morose close.”

From beginning to end, “Urinetown” – with a Tony-winning score by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis and a Tony-winning book by Kotis – lovingly skewers politics and nearly every form of musical theater, including a show with an unfortunate title like “Urinetown.”

Sings Lockstock, in the typically irreverent opening song “Too Much Exposition” that segues into the show’s title song:

Better hope your pennies

And we never bother with jail.

“I get to break the fourth wall the whole time, which is great,” says Leder-Luis. “I talk to the audience plenty.”

Director M.A. Haskin says she chose “Urinetown” because it has a large, active ensemble.

“I wanted the opportunity to get a lot of students in the spotlight,” she says. “You have to balance your musicals. When you do the big, old shows, you have five to seven leads and most of the kids sit in the dressing room. An ensemble show teaches other skills.”

“Urinetown” has challenging harmonies for Haskin’s cast of 41, to the point where the auditions were more discriminating than in past years when less-than-stellar singers might still have found themselves on stage.

As the score borrows heavily from classic musicals and styles, Haskin treated it as a sort of master class in musical theater.

“Before auditions, we held workshops to get kids prepared,” Haskin says. “And they even had to discover what shows were being mocked in each song, what style. Because if they don’t know that we’re mocking ‘Fiddler,’ and that’s why you’re doing Russian dance, they wouldn’t be able to sell the joke seriously.”

Photo by Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News: Brooke Alvarez performs a scene from “Urinetown” during rehearsal at The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry.

“URINETOWN”
Where: The Masters School, 49 Clinton Ave., Dobbs Ferry
When: 7 p.m. March 6 and 7.
Tickets: Free.
Call: 914-479-6400
With: Andre Adams, Brooke Alvarez, Lindsay Andretta, Anthony Bastone, Anna Beckerman, Megan Black, Melissa Boigon, Belinda Brown, Kate Bucciarelli, Nora Casper, Ian Ceccarelli, Caroline Cotto, Amanda Coyne, Marisa Diaz, Bethany Donovan, Alexandra Feldman, Allie Fifield, Julia Foote, Mary Elaine Gibbo, Liz Groombridge, Natasha Gupta, Keaton Guthrie-Goss, Devora Isseroff, Judah Isseroff, Robert Keller, Hailey Kieltyka, Jetson Leder-Luis, Matthew Lewis, Perry Minella, Jalen Mungin, Kendal Newman, Dylan Pager, Madeline Pitkin, Tess Ramirez, Rushell Reid, Olivia Romeo, Brian Semel, Isabel Shaida, Matthew Smith, Zachary Sporn, Noah Sterling, Susanne Trachtenberg, Nicole Veit, Alexas Connell, Jason Kuster, Robert Kuster, Ian Groombridge, Olivia Strauss

Watch Jetson Leder-Luis singing a bit of “Too Much Exposition” here.
View a gallery of photos of rehearsals for the show here.