Skip to main content

Leaders at Faust: An Interview with Sophie Burkhardt


"I find myself mostly inspired by the people I surround myself with."

During this period, we would like to share with you a series of interviews from our leaders, other creative members in our community and behind the scene glimpses of our youth theatre.

Sophia Burkhardt is a graduate from the University of Kent and a long time Faust member who has returned to Hong Kong and is one of our Group Leaders at Faust. 


 What current creative projects are you working on now that you would like to share

 I’m working on my photography blog at https://sophcreates.com.
I travelled a lot during university and took thousands of pictures that I’m finally editing and sharing. I also recently picked up film photography as a hobby and have been exploring Hong Kong to get to know the city a little better and capture as much of it as I can.




What impact did drama have on your confidence growing up?

 Drama made a huge world of difference in my confidence. Being an awkward teen is never easy but drama gave me the confidence to just be who I am because our workshops allowed me to let loose, and express myself without any fear of judgement. If I could pretend to be the silliest version of myself inside a classroom, I knew I could be myself outside of it.

Sophie (front row, centre) during a promo shoot for Faust's teen production of Romeo and Juliet in 2015)


Who are your heroes and inspirations?

 Wonder Woman - not that kind of hero? Where superheroes inspire me to be an everyday hero when I can, I find myself mostly inspired by the people I surround myself with. The love and support I get from my friends pushes me pay that forward, the hard work of my colleagues push me to work hard, and the fun, silly nature of my students remind me that I don’t need to take everything so seriously!


What’s your favourite Faust moment?


 When I was in Stage Group, the opening scene for one of our performances was particularly intense. A group of us were huddled together as prisoners on a ship and every rehearsal/performance we would whisper jokes to each other or try and tickle someone in the huddle to see who would corpse. We never broke character on stage but the giggles after we exited the scene were endless!

If you could perform any character from a children’s story / play for teenagers, what would it be and why?

 Kate (Katherine Minola) from Taming of the Shrew! I love the idea of playing a strong female character who gets to be witty and unashamedly intelligent in an environment where she’s being treated like a piece of meat. I also love comedy and would like to finally be in a Shakespeare play where all the characters live to see the curtain call.


A short personal message for your students here:

 Hello Group S1! I hope you’re all staying creative and reading lots of new stories that you can share with us when we get back to class! 
When we get back we will also start looking at another wonderful Roald Dahl story and of course, we will play lots of 'Crocodile' AND the 'Atom' game.  I’m so excited to see all of you again very soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creative Leaders - An Interview with The Team behind Hong Kong Live Play Readings

Today we have an interview with the team responsible for Hong Kong Live Play Readings, bringing actors in the US and HK together to perform plays online.  Could you let us know who you are please? We are Rebecca J Merritt and Davina Lee Carrete and we are freelance artists in Hong Kong. You both run Hong Kong Live Play Readings – a group on Facebook. And can you let us know how HKLPR got started ? Davina:  Rebecca told me about her actor friends in the US reading plays together online and I said we should do that here! We created a Facebook group, added performers we know in Hong Kong and Rebecca then invited her pals in the US. We have been reading together for the last month. Rebecca:   Davina actually mentioned to me she wanted to read some plays online with friends and has been doing that to test scripts and projects for Treasure Chest Theatre once the Pandemic ends. I mentioned it in my stories and then my friend who’s an actor in Chicago added me to his rea
1 comment
Read more

Creative Leaders - Kat Roma Greer

"This journey made me realise that there are many, many ways to contribute to the arts  landscape – you’re not a failure, you just need to find the one that best works for you." During this period, we would like to share with you a series of interviews from our leaders, other creative members in our community and behind the scene glimpses of our youth theatre. Kat Roma Greer is the founder of Micro Galleries, a free global arts initiative and virtual creative hub that uses art as a vehicle to create positive social change. This includes creative interventions in public spaces, workshops, art tours and more, working together with communities who are in some kind of social or creative need. Kat is also a former Faust Leader who led our teen programmes almost a decade ago. Caught in the act in Kathmandu, Nepal Secret Origins I grew up in a pretty low socio-economic area in Australia. It was a sport-focused town, and I  even went to a sports high school, but weird
Post a Comment
Read more

Mad About Hamlet

Stage Group has had the privilege of performing some of the world’s best-known plays including The Crucible, Waiting for Godot, The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear and more. After 3 years of masked performances, we are thrilled to bring you an unmasked performance of Hamlet at the Hong Kong Arts Centre from April 27 th to 29 th 2023 .   Everybody has heard of Hamlet - most people can probably identify him as “that guy who thinks too much and holds a skull” or characterise the play as “the one where everybody dies at the end.” However, Hamlet is also considered a significant, serious piece of literature with ever growing literary criticism, reinterpretations, homages, references and parodies.    In our adaptation of Hamlet, we have decided to strip down the tragedy to its core and let the characters breathe and be recognised as fallible, strange and relatable humans. We also wanted to play with the play, taking big creative swings with our interpretation.  The play has
Post a Comment
Read more