Outdoor summer theater opens in a big way this weekend in the greater Milwaukee area as a couple of notable productions open. Optimist Theatre’s staging of The Winter’s Tale at Kadish Park opens the same weekend as Summerstage of Delafield’s outdoor production of Don’t Drink the Water. Director Brian D. Zelinski brings Woody Allen’s 1966 play to the outdoor stage at Lapham Peak State Park. It’s a Cold War-era political comedy about an incompetent son left in charge of an American Embassy behind the Iron Curtain. Things go horribly wrong when a family on vacation accidentally takes a few pictures in the wrong spot. The communists think the family is a group of spies. It’s a fun premise developed by Woody Allen at a time when his straight-ahead comedy was remarkably fresh and inventive. It should be a fun show to see outdoors in the peaceful wooded space of the Summerstage.
Summerstage’s production of Don’t Drink the Water runs June 12 through 28. For ticket reservations and more information, visit Summerstage online.
