A guide to Minnesota's outdoor theater scene for summer 2023

Why should Taylor Swift have all the unexpected eek-y fun?

The Grammy-winning superstar accidentally swallowed a bug recently during her concert at Chicago's Soldier Field, joking that it's, "Oh, delicious."

Minnesotans who savor being outside in the warm months — taking in concerts, art fairs and the State Fair, and playing at the lake — have the same spirit, damn the pesky critters. Summer's also the time for outdoor and seasonal theater — with a side of the natural world.

In addition to the occasional rain shower and thunderstorm, "a raccoon once walked down the aisle during a play," said Brenda DeVita, longtime artistic director of American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis., where plays are performed at the 1,075-seat outdoor mainstage. "But sometimes things happen, like the rise of a full moon in a performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' or the fog rolling in as if on cue in 'Macbeth,' that leave you awestruck."

Here's a selected guide to what's on tap, from the classic to the contemporary, on the seasonal theater scene — most of it outdoors — in the Twin Cities and beyond this summer. Some shows require paid admission; others are free.

American Players Theatre, which has an $8 million budget and draws 100,000 people a year, many from the Twin Cities as well as Chicago, Milwaukee and nearby Madison, has eight shows slated for its 44th summer season. The plays have staggered openings before running in repertory, which means all could be seen over a long weekend. The mainstage lineup includes Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and a "Romeo & Juliet" performed in spoken English with some lines in American Sign Language. (Deaf actor Joshua Castille plays Romeo.)

The APT mainstage offerings continue with David Ives' farce "The Liar," Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," and "Anton's Shorts," playwright Aaron Posner's adaptation of a quintet of Anton Chekhov one-act comedies.

APT's founders included actor Randall Duk Kim, who famously played Hamlet at the Guthrie and modeled the classical theater's stage on the one designed by Tyrone Guthrie and Tanya Moiseiwitsch.

APT also has a 201-seat indoor theater that will host Marco Ramirez's "The Royale," Sonya Kelly's "Once Upon a Bridge," Melinda Lopez's "Mala" and David Auburn's "Proof."

Info: June 10-Oct. 8. 5950 Golf Course Road, Spring Green, Wis. $46-$101, americanplayers.org, 608-588-7401.

Classical Actors Ensemble has been presenting free outdoor Shakespeare around the Twin Cities for nine years, with about 3,000 people seeing their productions, according to producing artistic director Joseph Papke. He directs this summer's offering, "Much Ado About Nothing," which runs through July 16 at places such as Lake of the Isles, Tony Schmidt Park in Arden Hills and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minn.

"Free outdoor theater is the most successful theater we do because it's easiest for people to interact with and the stakes are not high," Papke said. "People may think they hate Shakespeare because of some interaction they had in school but when they pass by, they stop and stand still for a while. It's a testimony to strength of the performance that their feet get tired and they sit down" as they get carried away by the production.

Info: Through July 16 at Twin Cities-area parks. Free. classicalactorsensemble.org, 651-321-4024.

Tiger Lion Arts was founded by Markell Kiefer and Tyson Forbes in 2007 to focus on outdoor "walking plays." Its best-known show, "Nature," was made into an Emmy-winning documentary. It's based on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and starred Forbes, Emerson's great-great-great-great-grandfather.

Kiefer crafted "The Buddha Prince" in 2001 when she was an apprentice at the Children's Theatre Company. The 90-minute one-act chronicles the Dalai Lama's life from childhood to exile and has been performed in New York's Central Park. The cast includes professional Tibetan musician and dancer Tenzin Ngawang, 16 Tibetan youth dancers, masked performers and puppets, including a snow lion, the emblem of Tibet.

"It's about bringing people outdoors in nature and in connection with each other," Kiefer said.

Info: June 23-July 9 at Twin Cities area parks. $25, free for ages 12 and under. tigerlion.org, 612-444-1669.

Open Eye Theatre does outdoor puppet shows in garages, driveways and parks. This summer the Minneapolis company is doing Josef Evans' musical "Loch Mess: The World's Largest Freshwater Musical" atop open the Bakken museum's rooftop lawn. Joel Sass directs this musical about a girl's journey to Duluth in the 1900s as she seeks to become a steamship captain.

Info: June 23–July 16. 3537 Zenith Av S., Mpls. $15-$30, openeyetheatre.org, 612-874-6338.

The Gray Mallard Theater is one of the newest companies, founded in 2022 by Amanda Cate Fuller. The Minneapolis outfit has brewed up a new draft this summer — Shakespeare at the pub — and it will be performed on a thrust stage built in the parking lot of Sociable Cider Werks in northeast Minneapolis. The company will perform a 90-minute adaptation of "Twelfth Night" on three successive weekends.

"Bring your kids, your dogs, your families and come as you are," said actor, costumer and jill-of-all-theater-trades Cathy Fuller, who also is one of the founders.

Info: July 20-Aug. 5, Sociable Cider Werks, 1500 NE. Fillmore St., Mpls. Free, graymallardtheater.org.

Mixed Precipitation takes opera with gusto to the people. Friends Scotty Reynolds and Nick Schneider founded this company in 2009 to make the form more inviting by irreverently mashing up classics with contemporary tunes. The outfit has gone from being known for its "picnic operettas," where they served mini bites, to now doing opera from the back of a Ford pickup. They've been trucking all over the state since 2020, and will cover nearly 2,000 miles with this year's tour of "Romeo and Juliet," from Vincenzo Bellini's 1830 opera, "I Capuleti e i Montecchi." Stops include the North Shore, the Iron Range and Lake City, Minn., the birthplace of waterskiing.

"It's like making a jukebox musical with opera's greatest hits," said Reynolds. "We try not to be super-precious but also respect the grandness and opulence of these old, moldy pieces."

Info: July 29-Sept. 10, at various area parks. Free, mixedprecipitation.org.

The Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona also was founded by Guthrie-associated talent, this time alumni of the theater's joint BFA program with the University of Minnesota. The company's 20th-anniversary season runs for six weeks starting at the end of June and is indoors at Winona State University. In previous years, it has held performances outdoors.

GRSF is producing two Shakespeare titles — "As You Like It" and "The Winter's Tale" — plus the premiere of Melissa Maxwell's "Imbroglio," a family drama about two neighboring couples whose lives become entangled. All the shows open successively this weekend before running in repertory.

"We've reconfigured the theater into a three-quarter thrust so the experience will be a little bit like what it was during Shakespeare's time," said artistic director Doug Scholz-Carlson, who began as an actor at the festival 20 years ago and has risen through the ranks.

Info: June 20-July 30, 450 Johnson St., Winona, Minn. Free, grsf.org, 507-474-7900.