Sophie Blood Bardos (they/she) is a freelance theatrical designer, technical director, and educator whose work is focused on providing a platform for historically excluded narratives. They are currently the Head of the Design Academy at the Robert Halmi Sr. Academy for Film & Television in New York, where they teach and develop curricula for Set Design, Costume Design, and Hair & Makeup Design. They hold a Bachelor of the Arts with a concentration in filmmaking and media studies from Sarah Lawrence College.

What drew you to theater?  

I have always been a story-teller. I have journals from when I was first starting to write (rife with spelling errors, I might add!) that detail both factual and fabricated events in my six-year old life. I loved creating things. I loved fantasy books and music and art classes (specifically, I might add, creating a clay fish that was WAY better than my sister’s). I think living in my imagination made living in the world a bit easier for me growing up. There was nothing that really compared to creating and consuming stories for me. At various points growing up, I wanted to be an author, a screenwriter, an actor, a painter, a pop-star (I was very heavily influenced by the discography of one Hannah Montana), a composer, a lyricist, or a director. It took me almost until now to narrow it down. Which brings me to the question at hand. Theater is the answer to my question, the question of “how do I want to tell stories?” I tried all of the other paths, and they brought me here.

I love theater for many reasons, not limited to community, collaboration, catharsis, creation, and the way it teaches us who we are, who we were, and who we can be. I see theater as an immense coming together, a true equalizer, and a true reflection of humanity. My TGNB and queer identities deeply inform my work. My experience being raised as a woman deeply informs my work. My guiding value is that community and true compassion for our fellow people is the only way of chipping away at a society that wants us to hate each other, wants us to compete, and ultimately, wants us to stay down. As an artist, my focus is always on the question: why does this need to be said? Why does it need to be said by me? Why does it need to be said right now?