Covington-based performance artist Erika MacDonald’s newest show is all about her favorite thing: a good cup of tea.
And she told LINK nky that one of her favorite things about living in her home is the tea she can get right in her neighborhood.
“I’ve loved living in Covington,” MacDonald said. “I extra love it now that Kung Brew has opened.”
Kung Brew is a MainStrasse coffee and tea shop that opened at 640 Main Street last year.
MacDonald moved to the area in 2014 because of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. She and her partner, Paul Strickland, “moved out” together and traveled across the country and Canada performing in alternative theater.
“We were getting a little tired of that, so we thought we needed a place to call a home base, and Cincinnati Fringe was so welcoming and exciting that we decided to move to Covington,” MacDonald said.
Strickland told LINK nky that while Covington is “where we pay bills and taxes,” they are on the road for much of the year.
“We were not in our own bed over 200 days last year,” Strickland said.
The two are partners in both their lives and in their art.
They help each other out and give each other suggestions. Strickland, who is currently performing a show called Ghost Stories, told us that MacDonald helped a lot with suggestions for lighting on the mostly dark show.
For “Tea Time,” he is working as the director and sound designer.
About his partner’s new solo show, Strickland said, “What people should come to ‘Tea Time’ expecting is something that they will not expect. There’s going to be a lot of really cool elements to that show that I think no one will see coming.”
MacDonald described the show as being “about tea, but it’s also about something more than that.”
While she will literally be boiling water and making tea on stage, handing it out to audience members to enjoy, she will also be telling stories of her life.
But the audience won’t just be sitting and listening.
“You’re going to be chanting, you’re going to be whistling, you’re going to be humming,” MacDonald said. “I’m going to invite you to close your eyes and sit for three straight minutes so you can experience ‘steeping’ just like the tea. It’s gonna be a wild time.”
When it comes to the “steeping,” MacDonald said that it’s the central metaphor of her show, and she wants audiences to think about “the fact that sometimes it looks like we’re doing nothing, but something important is happening inside of us.”
During her performance, she also wants audiences to consider how making a cup of tea can be so important.
“Sometimes. something seems a little trivial or it seems a little confusing or a little small, but those things can actually be very important to us, and for me, one of those things is tea,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald will be premiering this show during her and Strickland’s 14th Cincinnati Fringe Festival.
Produced by Know Theatre, Cincinnati Fringe is a two-week celebration of the region’s theatre, art, music, film, dance and more, running May 31 through June 14.
The festival is part of a worldwide collection of Fringe Festivals that revolve around “fringe theatre,” which is non-traditional theatre produced outside of the main institutions. The term is thought to come from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which started in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Cincy Fringe is in its 21st year and will host 170 performances of over 35 theatre productions. There will also be art galleries, screenings, concerts, workshops, classes and parties.
MacDonald and Strickland both work closely with the Know Theater. Strickland said he’s really excited about this year’s festival and what the theater’s leaders are doing.
“I think they are really trying to just sort of blow on the flames and stoke a fire that was there pre-pandemic,” Strickland said.
MacDonald will perform “Tea Time” at Gabriel’s Corner at 1425 Sycamore Street, Cincinnati. The show is 60 minutes long, and performance times are May 30 at 8:45 p.m., June 1 at 7 p.m., June 5 at 7 p.m., June 6 at 8:45 p.m. and June 11 at 7 p.m.
Learn more about Cincinnati Fringe Festival and get tickets at cincyfringe.com.
