Brunswick, GA: Gifts and Goodbyes

"the greatest reward is when individual people say that the film was meaningful to them...”

Day 10: November 21st BRUNSWICK, GA: Golden Isles Arts and Humanities Association


On the final destination of our tour, we arrived at The Ritz Theatre in the Historic District of Brunswick, GA. The Ritz was opened in 1898 to house the Grand Opera House, which according to our host Heather Heath, mostly showed vaudeville. In the 1930s it became a movie palace and its name was changed to The Ritz Theatre. The screening was well-attended, with 60 people in the audience. At the question and answer session, one man asked, “What sorts of awards or acclaim have you received for this film?” Scott’s answer was, “For me personally, the greatest reward is when individual people say that it was meaningful to them.” Next a woman asked, “What is bubble tea?” Scott explained that the bubbles are made of tapioca. The tea is either green or black iced tea, sometimes containing condensed or powdered milk. Often, a flavor such as peach or almond is also added. Bubble tea is especially popular among young people.

Another audience member brought up the following question: “You said that tea is a lifestyle… What is your hope for that lifestyle?” Scott responded, “It is my hope that tea can provide an alternative to fast-paced modern life. By spending quality time with another person or spending time alone, it can allow you to connect with your path in life. Tea is unique in that it can both stimulate and soothe you.” Following this question, Scott revealed the meaning of the Chinese characters at the end of the film. The first character at the top means TEA, and the character directly underneath it means TAO. So this can translate to “the way of tea” or “the spirit of tea”. For further reading, he recommended The Book of Tea.

As the audience poured out of the theater, we had stimulating discussion with a charming character who had his own “tea studio” in Savannah but no advertising, website, etc. He said that people who come to have tea with him always learn about his space through word of mouth. He even gave the director a gift of an extraordinary Pu’er. We mingled with the audience for another half hour before finally packing up our remaining DVDs and soundtrack CDs for the last time, saying goodbye to Heather, and heading out to St. Simons Island for a look at the ocean before heading home to New York.

Scott and I want to extend our deepest gratitude to Allen Bell and everyone who worked with him on the Southern Circuit tour, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. This has been an invaluable experience for us, and I hope that over the years more artists will be able to have similar experiences with interacting directly with their audiences, the people we seek to simultaneously entertain and inform.

Orangeburg, SC: Preserving the Past

“Do you think if our society took the time out to drink a cup of tea, we would really be in a better situation?”

Day 9: November 20th ORANGEBURG, SC: I.P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium


We had a loyal support staff in Orangeburg, South Carolina. The morning of our journey, we received a phone call from Ellen Zisholtz and Darryl Murphy, who were eager to offer directions to make sure we arrived without a hitch. Upon entering the South Carolina State University campus, however, we got turned around, at which point Ingrid Owens, who works at the front desk, helped us to find out way to the venue.


South Carolina State University is an HBC, or a historically black college, and so this was our first African American audience, despite being in the South for nearly two weeks! SCSU is the only historically black land-grant institution in South Carolina, and it has about 4,500 students. When we arrived at the I.P. Stanback Museum and planetarium, we were introduced to Britney Cokley, the student who would later overcome her shyness and her confessed fear of public speaking to give a beautiful introduction to the film. Then we were quickly ushered into the museum to receive a tour of the museum, which housed an exhibition of Gullah culture, including paintings, crafts, and sculpture. The Gullah are African Americans from the South Carolina and Georgia Low Country who are known for preserving more of their African cultural and linguistic heritage than any other African American population in the United States. The art in the museum was both striking and soulful, encapsulating many of the artists’ memories of growing up in the lowlands of South Carolina, as well as demonstrating many Central and West African influences.


Dr. Elizabeth Mayo, the planetarium manager and astronomy professor at SCSU, took the helm, steering us into the planetarium for a sound and picture check. We were surprised and excited to discover that the screen was dome shaped and the seats reclined at a 45-degree angle! Soon thereafter, the students filtered in, and the film began. About twenty-five students attended the film, and Scott was dismayed to see many of the young people using their cell phones during the film. Being a bit of a texting-addict myself, I noticed this same trend in our previous night’s audience at Clemson University, but Scott was sitting in the front row and hadn’t noticed. In their defense, some of the students were using their phone LCD screens as a light to take notes, but regardless, the phenomenon led nicely into the post-screening discussion.

Sound check in planetarium

One student directly asked, “Do you think if our society took the time out to drink a cup of tea, we would really be in a better situation?” Scott replied, “I hope so. Today there is so much technology. For instance, I noticed a lot of cell phone use during the film, and cell phones do have their place. But when you step away from that technology and the demands it places on us and spend quality time with another person, it allows you to really connect. When I was having tea with an older gentleman in Asia, I could really tell that he was noticing my energy. It really helps to be in the moment; like when I’m talking to you now, I don’t notice anything else in the universe.”


The screening was followed by an extravagant British tea party prepared by the planetarium manager Dr. Elizabeth’s mother, Olwyn Mayo. Lined up on the table was an endless array of [typically-English] sausage rolls; cucumber sandwiches; nut bread with cream cheese, walnuts and celery; almond nut pastries filled with lemon curd and topped with fruit; cakes and cookies; and a tea punch made from strongly brewed black iced tea (8-bags!), orange juice, lemonade, and unsweetened pineapple juice. Elizabeth and her mother manned the tea stand, serving tea to the line of partygoers. I overheard one student named Ashley Burkes saying, “When I was younger, I used to go to tea parties all the time. Now I am thinking about hosting a tea party at my house.”


After the tea party, Ellen and two sharply dressed (and sharp-witted) students, Kenneth McClary and Davion Petty, accompanied us to the back storage room of the museum for a special treat. Movable storage cabinets parted ways to reveal… James Brown’s entire wardrobe, perfectly preserved from his estate! These brightly colored costumes, along with some furniture and various odds and ends, were being kept temporarily by the museum for an upcoming James Brown exhibit. We felt incredibly lucky to glimpse these relics from the Godfather of Soul.


After emerging from the vault, we stayed for another hour and a half with Ellen, Kenneth, Davion, Darryl, and Neta Weston-Harris, a friendly Atlanta native who relocated to South Carolina with her husband, and we chatted about the South, politics, and education, tossing jokes back and forth like old friends. We continued the conversation at Applebee’s, the only place open at ten o’clock on a weeknight. After a light bite, we retired to Ellen’s spectacular abode, which was adorned with beautiful artwork, including some of her own paintings, antique furniture, and gorgeous South American and African sculptures. Scott and Ellen continued talking into the wee hours of the night, while I hit the sack and continued to think about the night we just had. Upon reflecting, I realized that being at SCSU really established a contrast with the idea from the film that people, especially younger folks, are forgetting about the past. While we were walking through the I.P. Stanback museum looking at the cultural artifacts and learning about the history of the region, it couldn’t be more obvious that the university’s focus on black history encourages students to develop a strong sense of ancestry, with an emphasis on preserving the past. Therefore, the work that Ellen and her fellow faculty members are doing is challenging the notion that upholding tradition is a passing phenomenon. It was really refreshing to witness this first hand. Heather Hilton, who writes the blog for the museum, praised Ellen’s work in particular, saying, “She’s such a guiding light to all of us here.” For more on the museum’s events, visit the university’s blog at http://www.scsucrash.blogspot.com/

Clemson, SC: Future filmmakers

“How did your business background prep you for filmmaking?”

Day 8: November 19th CLEMSON, SC: Clemson University

At Clemson University, we experienced our first true college audience. Out of the 70 people who attended the screening, only about 5 were non-students. Aga Skrodzka-Bates gave an introduction to the film, and she was the first speaker to identify the film as a “lyrical documentary”, a relevant distinction to make when you’re dealing with an audience of film students and future filmmakers. This time when Scott asked, “How many people do not drink tea?” only seven people raised their hands.

From the film majors, the questions during the discussion were typically more focused in nature. One question was, “How did your business background prep you for filmmaking?” Scott answered that his background helped him in the fields of planning, budgeting, and knowing the bottom line. Before leaving the “rat race”, he worked in marketing on various health and beauty products, including Trojan condoms (audience laughs here). “I learned a lot about how to get the main selling point across, but my main objective here was to make a film that I loved.” Then he joked, “tea, like condoms, has redeeming social value and is very good for your health!”

Another student asked, “What was your budget?” Scott deftly dodged that question, responding, “It was somewhere between a home movie and what it cost to make The Titanic.” The next question was “What kind of cameras did you use to shoot the film?” The answer: the majority of the film was shot in High Definition using a Sony HDV camera, and about 12 hours were shot in 16mm using an Aaton camera. The 16mm film was chosen to bring up the production values.

This audience was very enthusiastic, and several students came to talk to Scott after the film. One particularly energetic student named David Williams compared The Meaning of Tea to a Werner Herzog film, a director that both he and Scott adore; Scott was incredibly humbled and nearly beside himself with the compliment. When I came out of the theater, Scott was surrounded by a group of students chatting away about film, and their individual film projects. After the film, we stopped by at the Sonic drive-in to continue to spread the message of tea.

Watkinsville, GA: Heart and Humor

"Humor is a great way to get conversation going..."

Day 7: November 18th
WATKINSVILLE/BOGART, GA: Oconee High School

The audience at Oconee High School in Bogart, Georgia was a small but loyal crowd of about thirty. At the discussion following the film, someone asked, “Is there such a thing as a good decaf tea?” And Scott replied that in his experience, you lose the flavor when you decaffeinate tea. However, “in some black teas, if you brew it for one minute, then pour it out, then brew it another time for a little bit longer, you can actually take out 60-70% of the caffeine while retaining the anti-oxidants in the infusion."

Another viewer asked, “What got you so interested in tea?” Scott responded that he always liked tea. The idea for the film also arose from his long-standing interest in Eastern thought. His interest deepened when he got turned on to Oolongs, a type of tea that is popular in Taiwan. Then Scott went through the six types of Chinese teas. This time when he got to white tea, he recounted, “It is said that white tea can only be harvested by virgins wearing white gloves with golden scissors. And it’s very difficult these days to find white gloves and golden scissors.”
This got quite a laugh from the college crowd.

Someone else pointed out that there is a lot of humor in the film, such as the segment when the tea sensei tries the instant bottled green tea, and the sequence with Earl Okin, the quirky “tea-contrarian” who talks about tea as being “namby-pamby, sort of nothing-y”. They inquired, “How did you make the choice of when to go for the humor?” Scott’s response was straightforward: “I’m always in favor of humor. When you’re making a film, you don’t want to preach too much. Humor is a great way to get conversation going; it is a way to appeal not only to the head, but to the heart.”


Immediately after the film, I found myself in the outside hallway with a local named Nina Lamson, who had attended the film with her husband. When I asked her how she liked it, she enthused, “It was really great! It had so many different dimensions to it.” When I asked her to elaborate, she went on: “It had three dimensions. One was the spiritual dimension; the second was the pure celebration of the beverage; and the third was the contrast of the old and the new, young versus old, and how that’s experienced globally.” I think Scott was elated when I relayed her comments to him, because this woman was really touched by the film. She understood innately what the message was, and hearing her feedback was one of the truly gratifying parts of having this experience and engaging directly with our audiences.


Following the film, there was free tea, courtesy of Jittery Joe’s, and we mingled for a bit, chatting with Rusty Haygood, our youthful host, before heading back to the gorgeous Ashford Manor Bed and Breakfast. We found out at the screening that the man who decorated this B & B used to design costumes for Prince! Scott stayed in a room that was Japanese themed, and so it was an ideal match, thanks Rusty!

Laughter in Lexington, KY

“We are the world’s new tea drinkers…”

Day 6: November 15th
LEXINGTON, KY: Downtown Public Library


Lexington boasted a substantial crowd, with between 70 and 80 people attending the screening at the Downtown Public Library. James Norwood Pratt, author of the esteemed “New Tea Lover’s Treasury” attended the screening, and he graciously joined Scott onstage for the question and answer session, lending an air of authority while simultaneously injecting quite a bit of fun and humor to the scene. Norwood explained that there are six types of teas: green tea, black tea (which the Chinese call red tea), Pu’er (a tea fermented in caves), white tea, red tea, and yellow tea ,“which the Chinese keep to themselves”. Norwood, in his characteristic lilt, added, “There are these wa-a-ays of approaching different teas. We [Americans] are the world’s… [pause]… ne-e-e-w tea drinkers. While Moroccans have their way, the English have their way. We have all of these ways; and they’re thriving.”


Then Scott described the essential qualities of water, which “has life”. He said that the best water for tea comes from a rushing stream. When you’re using tap water, it is preferable to filter the water to remove any impurities. In addition, one should never boil the water twice, because then it will become “dead water”. If you must boil the water again, always add a bit of fresh water to the pot before you do so. Norwood joked, “Here in Kentucky, they have the best water on Earth. Taste their bourbon!”

This audience was very challenging, and we got some feedback that departed from that of the previous five screenings. One woman asked, “Where did Americans get the idea of putting lemon in tea?” Both Scott and Norwood had to admit that they did not know. Another man offered up some criticism of the film. He said that as an Englishman, he felt that the film did not do justice to England’s culture of tea. He was in fact quite charming, explaining, “Tea is a drink that I have had since I was little. It is essential to daily life, and we use it as a transition between sleep and wake.” He was all the more endearing when he added, “I bring my wife a cup of tea at her bedside every morning.” He concluded by asking, “What I can’t understand is where did iced tea come from?!”, which got a laugh from the audience. Norwood responded that iced tea was invented at the St. Louis World Fair in the 1904. (Later that evening over supper, we learned from Bruce Richardson of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas that Cold tea recipes began appearing in community cookbooks such as The Kentucky Housewife (1839) and Housekeeping in Old Virginia(1879).

Next came a discussion about green versus black tea, prompted when a woman asked, “How do I tell what is green tea when I’m ordering it?” She had recently had an experience of ordering a Pu’er that she was told was green, but when she received it, the tea didn’t look at all green. Norwood explained that, in fact, there is a green and a black Pu’er. The difference is that green tea is made when you simply take the leaf and heat it. However, if you take the leaf, bruise it, expose it to air (oxidize it), and then apply heat, it becomes black tea. He also explained that halfway between green and black is Oolong tea. So, it depends how you treat the leaf. His advice on the question of how to find out if the tea is green or black before buying was, “Find yourself a tea purveyor with whom you can discuss these obscure matters!”


Scott interjected to explain how there are actually two plant constituents in tea. One is caffeine. The other is called L-Theanine. The latter is an anti-oxidant. As a result of these two chemical constituents, tea not only awakens your mind, but it also calms you down. Then he offered a Chinese saying: “Better to miss eating any food for three days, than miss a single cup of tea”.

Norwood gave some additional information on the treatment of tea leaves. He explained that, counter intuitively, you shouldn’t give the plant the best conditions, or it will grow like crazy. “In order for it to be exceptional tea, the bush has to struggle and suffer. Higher elevations, cool air in the nighttime, combined with warm air in the day; this stresses the leaf. Even wind is a factor. More stress equals more flavor. In fact, the best Oolongs have leaves that have been attacked by tiny little insects that change the chemistry of the leaf.” Interestingly, this phenomenon is depicted in Scott’s next project, a short silent film (set to music) about the cultivation of a white Oolong called Oriental Beauty. An extremely close macro lens was used to capture an image of the insect, which is not visible to the naked eye. Everyone laughed at Norwood’s closing statement about the treatment of tea plant: “If it’s as happy as a hog, it should be put in a Lipton tea bag!”


The tea conversation continued over dinner at Bombay Brazier, a wonderful Indian restaurant in downtown Lexington. Norwood and his wife Valerie joined us, as did Bruce (below, far right) and Shelley Richardson (above left) of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and Benjamin Press (one of the leading publishers of tea media). Bruce is one of America’s leading tea experts, and both he and his wife have a long-standing commitment to educating people about tea as a lifestyle. More tea talk transpired, and we left dinner feeling full and happy after a relaxing reunion with friends.

Pu'er in Paducah, KY

“tea is the new wine…”

Day 5: November 14th
PADUCAH, KY: Paducah School for the Arts

All ready to go and a bit weary after our early plane ride, we drove 2 hours from the Nashville Airport to Paducah, KY, a town that is self-described as being in the “middle of nowhere”. Paducah, a city that is at least 2 hours from the nearest city in all directions, is nonetheless a thriving art community, as a result of their Artist Relocation Program. Beginning in August 2000, the city invited artists from all over the world to come to Paducah in exchange for housing and other incentives.

After dinner with Harvey Sadow and his wife Susan, two free spirits who were also excellent hosts, we headed over to the movie theater. Harvey gave a wonderful introduction to The Meaning of Tea, declaring, “it’s easy to see why the film got such high grades at the judging in Atlanta” (the meeting where everyone decides which films will be shown on the Southern Circuit tour). He ended his intro by saying that The Meaning of Tea is “not a typical PBS-style documentary, thank you Scott.”


There were several kids at the film, and one fellow asked, “Is it true that different types of tea are from the same plant, but it is just harvested in a different way?” Scott responded that yes, that’s true. It’s an evergreen bush called Camellia sinensis, and if you let it grow wild, it turns into a tree. In addition, the soil conditions and the environment the leaf is exposed to, as well as the way it is harvested and artfully produced, determines the type and flavor of the tea.


As it turned out, there were many people in the audience that appreciated the waterfall sequences in the film. One woman volunteered, “I like the way in the film we’re always reminded of the purity of water through waterfalls, rivers, and the pouring of the water for tea.” Another filmgoer asked, “Did you ever find the meaning of tea?”, to which Scott replied, “I don’t think I’ll ever find it, but I’ll keep trying. The meaning of tea might simply be the path we travel on through life. Every time I sip it consciously, I find that I learn a little bit more.”

The screening was followed by an event at Serenitea, the local teashop. The building itself was a strikingly large house marked, like many of the buildings in Paducah, by its Victorian architecture. They offered a number of unconventional teas, including a very earthy-tasting green tea, a delightful white tea, and a Pu’er. The shop was decorated for Christmas, and so the gathering felt festive, as everyone milled about tasting the various flavors and chatting with friends, old and new. As Harvey mentioned earlier in the evening, “The New York Times says tea is the new wine.” He just might be right.

Lake Charles, LA: Tea and Antiques

"the film must have been a success, because three of our local professors attended the screening, two of which don’t normally come..."

Day 4: November 13th
LAKE CHARLES, LA: Arts & Humanities Council of SWLA

Lake Charles, Louisiana was full of friendly, intelligent and well-traveled folks. We were surprised to find people in the audience from Philadelphia, New York City, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Becky Suttle, one of the women who brought teapots to the screening, lived in Japan for many years, and her friend Jackie Dowden lived in the same town in Japan only four years after she left. Small world. ;)


Initially, when our host Irene Vandever (above left) ushered us down a bizarre hallway full of gaudy costumes and disturbingly lifelike mannequins, we weren’t sure what to think (it turned out to be a Mardi Gras museum). However, upon entering a nearby room full of teapots and antique tea sets, we knew we had arrived. A lucky series of events brought the owner of a local antique store called Focal Point into the Arts and Humanities Council of SWLA just as they were planning an event around our tea film. As a result, Becky Suttle (above far right) and Jeanne Owens (above right), local vendors who have booths at Focal Point, both came to set up an elegant teapot display, complete with a “Tea Timeline” as well as other literature about tea. “We set up some things that are not politically correct with the tea police,” Jeanne lamented. But actually Scott and I were quite pleased with the presentation. One of the items was a 100-year-old Vietnamese teapot and cozy; I had never seen anything like it.


The piece that played before ours was called “I Always Do My Collars First”, a short film comprised of interviews with women from different walks of life talking about ironing clothes. I was struck by how, despite having very different subject matter, the themes that arose in the short film were reminiscent of some of the themes from The Meaning of Tea. One woman explains that the practice of ironing clothes is “healing”; she describes it as a way of living in the moment, remarking that people often “spend too much time thinking about what’s ahead”. She then goes on to say that ironing is like a ritual that helps her to “go back in time”. These ideas reminded me of the tea ceremony: not only a way to take time out from one’s busy life to reflect, but simultaneously a ritual act that ties us to the past. The funniest part of the film was when an elderly woman (who was quite a firecracker) remarked that she irons her clothes for church, but that she saves her really nice clothes for the casino. That got quite a laugh.

There were 55 people at the screening, and when Scott asked, “How many people drink tea?” practically every hand was raised. Then when he asked, “How many people have a wrinkle in their shirt?” almost as many hands shot up. The audience was extremely receptive and enthusiastic, and they asked some great questions. One woman astutely noted that the tea in Morocco was made with mint, and so therefore was not really tea. (Tea is actually defined as a drink made from the Camellia sinensis plant, and so therefore many herbal infusions that are oftentimes thought of as tea, are not actually so.) Scott answered that in fact, there is one more ingredient in that Moroccan tea that was not shown on film, and it is gunpowder green tea. So the green tea was already there before they added the mint, sugar, and hot water.

Another person asked how Tea, South Dakota acquired its name. Scott explained that when they were choosing the name for the town, they originally wanted to call it Byron. However, there was already a Byron in the state of South Dakota, so they had to submit ten names to choose from. Some people were sitting on the front porch of the general store and they couldn’t think of a tenth name. As the legend goes, someone was sitting on a crate of tea and so they said, hey, why not just add “Tea” to the list, and that was the one that got picked!

After the screening, Irene told me that the film must have been a success, because three of their local professors attended the screening, two of which don’t normally come. We were feeling excitement over the event going so well, mixed with trepidation of having to wake up at 4 :30 to catch a six o’clock flight to Paducah, KY…

Auburn University, AL: Art and Academia

“tea gets transformed into a new way of addressing an age-old problem...”

Day 3: November 11th
AUBURN, AL: Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art


The drive from New Orleans to Auburn was LONG. At just over 5 hours, it swept away the majority of our afternoon. When we arrived at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, we were struck by the beautiful exterior. There was a lake in front. In the back, there was a reflecting pool with a large abstract bronze sculpture prominently displayed behind it.


When we met our contact Scott Bishop, a woman who coincidentally shares the name of the director Scott Chamberlin Hoyt, we asked her how many people typically show up to these screenings. She said that if they had 30 people, that would be a good turn-out.

After a delicious salad at the café, we proceeded into the theater, where Scott, despite her confessed fear of public speaking, gave a flawless introduction to the film. She was the first host to speak of how the Southern Circuit originated; it began in 1975 as a way to highlight the achievements of the most talented independent filmmakers, and also to engage the audience in discourse through question and answer sessions. Since then it has visited 44 communities in the Southern United States.


With an audience of 50 people, far higher than the expected 30, the film was a hit. Almost everyone in the audience stayed for the question and answer, and some interesting questions were raised. One man aptly observed that the film examines the age-old idea of reflecting on life and slowing things down, and he noted that embedded in the film is the notion that “tea gets transformed into a new way of addressing that age-old problem”. The director concurs: slowing down and taking time to pause allows one to see more clearly, and that's what The Meaning of Tea is all about! Another film watcher asked, “Does it smell like tea when standing in the tea fields?” Scott replied that he had never been in a tea field while it was flowering, but that when he has been there, he has never detected anything like the aroma tea itself.

There were a fair number of students in the audience, something that we have not experienced in the past. One student asked, “In all your experiences, was there one tea experience, or something about the way it was prepared that stuck with you?” Scott told a story about a very rare tea served to him by Taiwanese Tea-Master Mr. Lin that tasted like a plum brandy. It was a forty-year-old aged Oolong, cured over 600 times from the charcoal wood of the dragon fruit tree.

Another student commented that the film was beautiful and in fact “visually perfect”, and asked how many hours of footage there were to which Scott responded, “We shot 120 hours of footage including 12 hours of 16mm film to bring up production values. The film was later edited down to 74 minutes. "I was very well supported, by the way, with recent graduates from the New York University Film School. So they were my team.”

Auburn University was a very pleasant experience. The audience, although a bit more reserved than some, were very focused, and asked more informational questions than any of our audiences in the past. Whether that was because of the academic environment cannot be known for sure, but we appreciated their deep insight and respectful attention.

Baton Rouge, LA: Star treatment

"Why did you go to Taiwan and not China?..."

Day 2: November 10th
BATON ROUGE, LA: Manship Theater

Over dinner with brightly-clad Terry Serio, or Terrio, as I came to think of her (when I wasn’t calling her Kathy by accident), we learned that the Manship Theater in Baton Rouge hosts many scintillating music performances by musicians and local celebrities. While many of them come from New Orleans, a 1.5 hour drive away, there are just as many who hail from Baton Rouge. The city, with just under a million people, is thriving with culture, and we couldn’t wait to get over to the theater to meet some of its residents.

When we arrived to the theater, we were ushered into the “Star’s Dressing Room” (left), where we deposited our things before rushing off to check the sound and picture. There were 95 people at the screening, a great turn-out! At the question and answer session, a man in the audience asked, “Why did you go to Taiwan and not China? Was it because of the oolongs?” Scott, delighted, answered, “You’re absolutely right about that. It was because of my love for oolongs!” It seemed we had quite a dedicated tea following in Baton Rouge.


Following the film screening, there was a lovely reception with teas provided by the folks from Whole Foods (below right with Terry on the left) were incredibly nice, and it was a bustling reception with lots of great conversation. The last stragglers drifted out, and by a little after 10 p.m., we were back in our car, en route to New Orleans.

Ashland, KY: Tea Party at Historic Site

“part of our job is getting people used to seeing films here again..."

Day 1: November 9th, 2008
New York, NY --> ASHLAND, KY: Paramount Arts Center

Sleep deprived from moving to my new apartment the day before, I stumbled out into the dark abyss at 5:30 AM and rolled into the car waiting to take me from Brooklyn to Manhattan. There, I would rendezvous with director Scott Chamberlin Hoyt for our flight to West Virginia, en route to the Paramount Arts Center in Ashland, KY, the first venue on the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers.

Once safely seated in the rental car outside the Huntington, West Virginia airport, Scott (a bit of an eccentric) started choking on toxic fumes that he presumed to be coming from inside the car and asked me repeatedly not to tap the brakes because it was making him carsick. Five minutes later, already lost, we pulled into a gas station to buy soggy pre-packaged sandwiches. Scott was very surprised that there was hot water but no tea. He wanted some chips, but after a scrupulous reading of the ingredient label, decided that they were not entirely safe for consumption.

Armed with directions from the cashier, we proceeded onto Winchester Ave, the location of the Paramount Arts Center. Scott became exuberant upon seeing a McDonalds billboard advertising Sweet Tea. “That’s so Southern! We have to come back and take a picture of that for the blog,” he enthused, chuckling. “Heh! That’s great!”

Winchester Ave was characterized by an endless parade of fast-food chain restaurants against a bleak background of grey sky, power lines, and a coal refinery. So you can imagine our surprise when we rolled up to the Paramount Arts Center, a grandiose and majestic theater full of relics from its heyday in the 1930s-early 70s, and to Scott’s delight, THE MEANING OF TEA displayed prominently on the marquee.


Upon entering the venue, we were greeted by Kathy Setterman and impeccably dressed Heidi Schmalbach, who gave us a quick rundown on the history of the place. The theater, built in 1931, was part of an effort by Paramount Pictures to build a “perfect movie house” in every state of the union for showing silent films. When the Great Depression hit, Paramount abandoned this pursuit, but it was picked up by an Ashland based company and the original design was scaled back by one third. In 1971, the building was converted into a performing arts center under the leadership of Ashland Oil CEO Paul Blazer, Jr. in conjunction with the Greater Ashland Foundation, and no films were shown from 1971 until September of 2008. For this reason, Kathy explains, “part of our job is getting people used to seeing films here again”. It’s a lofty goal rallying an audience around indie film in Ashland, Heidi adds, but they are committed to the project.


The best thing about the Paramount Arts Center was the people. Geneva Pritchard, a charming local with a sharp sense of humor (appears to the right in picture below), jokes that she is going to try one of each type of complimentary tea (since after all, it is free)! She tells me how she remembers seeing Westerns in the old theater, before it was converted into a performing venue. Heidi tells us that many old-timers can remember seeing films, and it is a nice treat for them to be able to come back after so many years. On an unrelated but fascinating note, in January 1992, the theater was the site where Billy Ray Cyrus, sporting a raging mullet, filmed his music video for “Achy Breaky Heart”.


The Paramount Arts Center team really knows how to throw a party. The woman of the hour was Donna Yacoe (left in above picture), a volunteer and fellow tea aficionado who pulled together a delightful tea party to accompany the film screening. The tea party featured an impressive array of finger foods (almost single-handedly prepared by Donna), including traditional cucumber sandwiches, with complimentary tea provided by Roger from Starbucks. Upon seeing the spread, Scott and I immediately regretted having eaten Wendy’s in a moment of weakness before entering the theater.


Donna also brought her own personal collection of tea pots (shown below), from a Japanese tea set, to what looked to be a British tea set purchased at a garage sale, to a Russian samovar. Finally, she was the ultimate host, convivial and accommodating. No sooner had I lifted the last curry chicken salad mini-sandwich (displayed above) from the platter when Donna came rushing in with another plate. According to husband Peter, who worked with her at the event “She’s the volunteer and I’m the slave.”


The screening was a hit, drawing a crowd of fifty, their largest yet for a documentary film screening. The audience, a surprisingly eclectic crowd of people, were polite and receptive, and almost all of them stayed for the question and answer session following the film. A lovely Indian couple stayed afterwards to chat about Scott’s travels to India. We had to catch a plane to New Orleans and so we jetted away, both extremely pleased with our soirée in Ashland.