From Deseret News archives:
'Don't Drink Water' new to stage
• DON'T DRINK THE WATER, being directed by Jayne Luke, is Hale Center Theater Orem's 2008 season opener, although it will have three performances at the end of 2007. The comedy opens Saturday and continues through Feb. 9, with two special performances on New Year's Eve.
At the time "Don't Drink the Water" debuted at Broadway's Morosco Theatre, Allen was a young, little-known comic fresh off Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows." The plot revolves around Walter and Marion Hollander, a New Jersey caterer and his wife, and their family who become trapped in the U.S. embassy in a small foreign country. They're confronted by an irate sultan, a bumbling diplomat and a Houdini-esque priest. The asylum the Hollanders and their daughter seek turns humorously insane.
The partly single-cast ensemble includes Lon Keith and Cathleen Metten Lewis as Walter and Marion Hollander; Alexis Wardle as Susan, their daughter; Bobby Swenson as Axel Magee, the hopelessly inept son of the ambassador (who is stuck trying to handle embassy business while his father is out of town); and Davey Morrison as Kilroy.
Mitch Hall and Marc Haddock portray Father Drobney, with Ben Wake and Nyle Smith as Ambassador James F. Magee, and Paul Hill, Gene Ledbetter, Jolene Sayers and Kaye Woodworth in a variety of roles.
There will be two shows on New Year's Eve — one at 6 p.m. and the other at 10 p.m. Both will include a preshow light buffet, intermission refreshments and holiday party favors. Tickets are $25 each for the early show and $30 for the later one.
Regular performances are 7:30 p.m. nightly (except Sundays) with matinees at 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 26 and Feb. 2 and 9. There will be no performances on Jan. 1, 2, 8 and 9. Tickets are $11.50-$15.50 (226-8600 or www.haletheater.com).
• PLAN-B THEATRE COMPANY'S recent world premiere production of "Exposed," by local playwright Mary Dickson, has been nominated for the American Theatre Critics Association's Steinberg Award for Best New American Play, a competition for plays produced outside of New York City during 2007.
Dickson's drama focuses on the deadly impact of nuclear testing in Nevada between 1951-92 and the high rate of fatalities among those who became known as downwinders.
"Exposed" will be produced next summer at the New End Theatre in Hampstead, Great Britain, and Plan-B is also in negotiations to take the original cast on tour.
