After the untimely death of their neighbor, four women meet at her home for tea. They are Japanese wives of American Servicemen who have come to America post-war with their new husbands, drawn together not by choice but by forced proximity and shared identity. Sequestered in Junction City, Kansas after the American occupation of Japan, the women must confront this loss head on, and ask themselves if the tenuous ties between them can ever stand in for true community.

Setting: Kansas, Japan, and the Netherworld

Time: 1987

Tea received a Rockefeller Foundation workshop production at Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, California; and its professional world premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club, New York. Prior to 1984, it was developed via several readings and primarily at the Actors’ Studio-Los Angeles under the mentorship of the late Paul Zindel.

The Refocus Project is made possible by the Champions for Inclusive Theatre and Roundabout’s Forward Fund. We acknowledge the generous friends who support our many efforts to increase representation and inclusion in all aspects of theatre: Elizabeth Armstrong, Bank of America, Eugene and Joann Bissell and the Lillian Lincoln Foundation, Kevin Brown, Barbara and Peter Bye, Ginger McKnight Chavers, Ford Foundation, Jill and Barry Lafer, Gina Maria Leonetti, Iva Mills, Beryl Snyder, and Denise Littlefield Sobel.