Sophie Blood Bardos (they/them) is a freelance theatrical designer, technical director, and technician whose work is focused on providing a platform for historically excluded narratives. They are currently the Technical Director and resident Scenic Designer at Fairfield Ludlowe High School and resident Lighting Designer at the Downtown Cabaret Theater in Bridgeport. 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?