Royal tea parties take place across St. Joseph

By Jazmine Knight

It was a bippity boppity boo-utiful day at the Dance Arts Center and the Ruby Theatre as they both hosted tea parties 

Despite the freezing temperatures, both events had an amazing turnout.

The Dance Arts Center held a Mad Hatter tea party. The idea of the tea party is inspired from the tea party scene in the Alice in Wonderland movie. The goal is to build anticipation for their upcoming Alice in Wonderland performance that takes place Saturday, January 27th. The performance will feature many styles of dance including contemporary, classical, ballet, hip-hop and more. 

Dancer Elliot Deschepper, who plays Alice says, “I really like being able to be with all my friends that are here at the studio. It’s fun to work with them and to getting to see everything come together.”

Elina Sherman, who plays the Mad Hatter says her favorite part is “seeing just all of the communication and the teamwork that it takes to put on this ginormous production.”

Each dancer dressed up in their costume and served the attendees their choice of hot chocolate or lemonade with an assortment of cookies. Guests also got the opportunity to paint a wooden tea cup and take it home at the end of the day. 

At the end, the dancers gave attendees a sneak peak of their upcoming show with a mini dance performance. 

According to Sherman, nerves don’t scare her. “I’m totally opposed. I mean, I’m kind of nervous, but it all comes with time.”

Just a few blocks away, the Robidoux Resident Theatre hosted their semi annual royal tea party. For their fourth year in the making, the theatre has put on this event in hopes of bringing more events to the St. Joseph area. 

Lindsay Prawitz, Robidoux Resident Theatre program director, says “Well, Sandy Berger, our executive director, and I were talking about how we can offer things in Saint Joe that a lot of people travel to Kansas City to do. And one of those things is a princess tea or just a Tea Party in general. Adding the princesses to it makes it elevated a bit, but there’s not very many places you can go to just sit down and have like an actual tea set at your table with your little girls.”

Prawitz believes the tea party takes pride in its quality. “So at each table there’s a full tea set, the whole set matches, which is really fun. They have the hot water, they have tea packets to choose from, teacups, little spoons, little saucers and sugar cubes, which is really exciting for the kids. And then they have a whole tier of snack foods that you would find at a tea party.

Also in attendance at the tea party were princesses such as Moana, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and her prince. Each princess performed their signature song and participated in pictures with the children. 

Overall, each child left with a smile on their face. When speaking about the tea party, Prawitz says “this is a whole experience that most people don’t get to have.”