Sea Tea Comedy Theater plans summer reopening with lots of laughs
Sea Tea Improv hears the rumbles of people wanting to have fun in public again. As a place to laugh, as a place to experience new ideas and creative leaps, or just as a safe, intimate place to escape to at night, the improv troupe with its 80-seat Sea Tea Comedy Theater on Asylum Street is readying to reopen.
“We’re definitely reopening,” says the company’s managing director Julia Pistell. “They want us to come back.”
Indoor comedy classes will return before indoor comedy performances do. Pistell expect improv classes and other comedy training to be live again in June, while shows in the Sea Tea Comedy Theater won’t likely happen until July.
Pistell says the company seeks to “use our theater to process the last year and a half. We’ll do a bunch of shows that will be us talking to the audience about what they want to see shows about.”
She expects suggestions that are “not directly about COVID but COVID-adjacent,” such as the difficulties of living in isolation for so long.
“The first show back will have a very connected vibe,” Pistell promises.
Pistell’s encouraged by the state’s easing of mask and distancing mandates. “It changes so much if our performers don’t need to be masked. We don’t have to go through a dystopian phase, and can go straight to the comedy.”
Masks may be required in the audience. Like other theaters,
Sea Tea is looking to its patrons for cues on what will make them feel comfortable and safe. What is clear, Pistell says, is that “people are really, really wanting to come back. I thought there might be more hesitation.”