The Buzz Intro Interview

Jodie Jernigan - Creator & Performer

People should come and see On Guilt & Clementines because beyond being a "show", it is a deeply personal reckoning. A vulnerable confession, a questioning as ritual. It’s an invitation to witness someone peeling themselves open, segment by segment, like a clementine. This work will resonate for anyone who has ever sat in the dark with their own shame, held their breath in church pews, or whispered apologies into pillows. This work is still wondering, still aching, still yearning. It is a reflection on the past, a kaleidoscope that peers into the unresolved "in-between." This work asks its audience, "Do you see me? Do you see yourself in me?"

This piece belongs at a festival—especially the Atlanta Fringe Festival—because it's bold, it's unfiltered, and it's fiercely independent. Festivals like ATL Fringe are where experimental and unpolished performance is meant to exist. They’re playgrounds for risk-taking. They celebrate voices that don’t always fit inside traditional theatre spaces—voices that challenge, stretch, and subvert. On Guilt & Clementines doesn’t ask for permission. It confesses. It confronts. It questions. It strips down—literally and metaphorically—everything we’re taught to hold sacred. That kind of work thrives in a space that champions vulnerability and innovation over perfection and polish.

A cathedral built on memories and contradictions, On Guilt & Clementines is a public confession, a breaking down of ideas and identity. This work was made out of necessity, built out of the weight of wanting. This piece didn’t come from a single moment—it came from accumulation spanning years. I was inspired by the ache of unspoken things. By fear, by ritual —the beauty and terror of it. I was inspired to make this after realizing that I cannot tread water for a lifetime. Art is sometimes the only place where the mess is not just allowed—but necessary. Where confession becomes communion. Where peeling yourself open is not a sin, but an offering. I was inspired by your truth, today, right now—and the hope that someone else might recognize theirs in it.