When facing a possible environmental cataclysm for our world, what could be better than the relaxing aroma and warmth of hot tea?
Or, when digging deep to assuage the grief from the death of a loved one, what could be more comforting than, again, a sip of hot tea?
This may sound counterintuitive – that a simple common beverage can ease pains both personal and pervasive – yet artist Jessica Creane has found it to be so. Loose-leaf tea, in fact, is at the core of her performance, “Tea Party at the End of the World.”
Yes, the audience drinks tea, prepared by Creane, as she leads people through a partly scripted multi-sensory performance, along with unscripted conversations and parlor games. The crux of the performance: Her 2022 artist residency at the Arctic
Circle.
“It is calming and grounding to have a cup of tea,” Creane said in a telephone interview. “It is soothing and comforting for us as we deal with complexity.”
“Tea Party at the End of the World” is featured at the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival this year, a performance at the festival’s new intimate venue, The Garden Studio.
"Tea Party" has multiple performances between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26. Tickets are available.
No 'dry eye in the house'
Fringe Festival chief executive officer and founding producer Erica Fee saw the show at San Diego’s annual Without Walls (WOW) festival and decided it needed to make its way to Rochester.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Fee said. “It was one of the most moving theatrical experiences I’ve had in my life.”
There may seem to be little artistic connection between the vastness of the Arctic Circle, where Creane expected to witness calving glaciers (she did), and a cozy tea party, but Creane saw how her cadre of artists-in-residence were united in spirit and concern.
That was partly the spark for “Tea Party,” a recognition that the weight of the world is best shouldered with others.While she expected to be emotionally weakened by what she witnessed at the Arctic Circle, instead she found a spark from the alliance with others. “I think I came away with a different lens on the whole situation,” she said.
The immensity of splitting glaciers and rising seas was the original focal point of “Tea Party,” but Creane eventually interjected her personal grief from the 2016 death of her father.
“What we often see is the immediacy of grief,” Creane said. Yet, grief – like slow-moving environmental degradation – can linger, sometimes acknowledged, sometimes ignored.
Game design and play
Professionally, Creane is a game and immersive experience creator, and she thinks issues of all stripe and scale can be interactive with play.
She sees theatre now going through a metamorphosis that welcomes performances like “Tea Party.” Along with standard theatre productions, there is a growing field of immersive performances where the audience is as much participant as observer.
“The immersive theatre is massive and growing and young in a lot of ways,” Creane said. “It’s a very interesting time to be part of it.”
“Tea Party at the End of the World” is just that – immersive theatre that invites and encourages a communal experience around issues of loss and pain.
Creane plays hostess – one she admits is not particularly adept – for the 30-person audience. In that role, she is a guide, and the show’s boundaries are often dictated by “the energies, the questions, the spirits, the curiosity of the group.”
The recognition and understanding of grief “opens up space and possibilities,” Creane said.
Especially when sweetened with a little playfulness.
Said Creane, “I want to be in a world where everyone gets to play.”
Gary Craig retired from the Democrat and Chronicle in 2025. Primarily a courts reporter, he has always found time to write about the arts in Rochester.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: If the world were ending, drink tea, Fringe artist says | Exclusive
