Fringe Review 2025: Tea TIME
A show about tea and time - and steeping in the moments
There’s no real way to describe Tea TIME without feeling like you’re underselling it. Yes, Erika MacDonald talks about tea. But that’s just the vessel. What’s inside the cup is something much more potent.
From the moment she steps onstage, MacDonald is utterly captivating. She radiates an effervescent warmth that makes you lean in, like a cross between Mr. Rogers and your wry, slightly chaotic best friend—the kind who’ll drop a perfectly timed F-bomb while telling you something profound. She’s unpredictable, but safe. A little strange, but always grounded. Even when something goes awry (and in true Fringe fashion, it might), you never doubt for a second that she’s in control. It’s like watching someone spin plates with one hand while stitching meaning into the air with the other—and smiling the whole time.
Her charm is disarming, her delivery sharp, and her timing impeccable. At one point, she asked the audience to close their eyes and steep in silence for three minutes. I couldn’t. There’s something about her presence that makes it hard to look away. Her storytelling invites you in gently, but you stay because she’s a master of subtle tension and release. She lulls you, then zings you. And when a metaphor lands, it hits with real weight.
Paul Strickland’s sound design and direction keep the pacing clean without ever feeling polished to a fault. Genevieve Bernard’s choreography adds texture and momentum, and Robyn Novak’s embroidery art (tagged as @sickbeetstitch) brings a tactile beauty that somehow matches the show’s emotional fabric. Add to that a rock-solid team—Emily Mallendick on stage management, Becca Armstrong on tech—and you get a production that feels cohesive, even in its looseness.
Tea TIME doesn’t fit neatly into a box, which is exactly what makes it feel so… Fringe. If someone asked me what a Fringe show is, I’m not sure I could answer. But I might point to this.
At one point, MacDonald voices a skeptical character who asks, “Wait, you sat there while a weird lady talked about tea?”
Yep. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
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