Don’t Drink the Water

Madison Theatre is off on a less than predictable vacation in their weekend production of Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water.” Madison Consolidated High School advanced theater students will perform at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Opal E. Sherman Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. “Don’t Drink the Water” first opened on Broadway in 1968 and ran for almost two years with 598 performances - Allen’s first major success in playwriting. The comedy follows the Hollander family as they are accused of being American spies in an unidentified foreign country The three seek refuge in an American embassy where they wait out an arrangement for their escape. To make matters worse, the ambassador’s young, inexperienced son is running the embassy in his father’s absence. Now, the son must lead negotiations with foreign governments and hostile agents alongside the boisterous Hollander patriarch, Walter. Over the course of their stay, the family befriends an exiled priest-turned-magician and love sparks between the ambassador’s son and the Hollander’s young daughter. Director and Fine Arts Academy instructor Aaron Kelsey said he’d chosen Allen’s play as an effort to continue widening the range of authors students would encounter. The show takes place over two acts and should last about 90 minutes.