Read The Room, 2024
REDCAT, as a part of New Original Works Festival, curated by Katy Dammers
Los Angeles, CA

”Framed as a theatrical rehearsal between an Actor and her Director,  Read The Room reconsiders these roles and their relationship to the audience in an unsettling, comedic, and outrageous experience. Interdisciplinary artist Sophia Cleary investigates the tension between script and improvisation in theater and the illusion of control in a performance that embraces liveness: you cannot fast forward or rewind–you can only move without knowing what comes next. This two-hander play manifests as a metaphor for the contemporary climate where fact and fiction are no longer discernible and investigates what laughter seemingly condones–ultimately calling attention to what contracts can be upended rather than being consumed as spectacle. “

Acting Director, 2024
performance view, Human Resources Gallery as a part of First Draft curated by Emily Barasch, Los Angeles, CA
A scripted and confrontational two-hander masking as an improvised rehearsal that addresses how the director, actor, playwright, and audience might abuse or rescue each other. Performed by Sophia Cleary and Joshua Kilcoyne.
Photo credit courtesy of the artist and Ian McPherson.

Isn’t Live Performance So Amazing?, performance view, 2024, San Diego, CA
In this performance I address the vulnerability and precarity of live performance. What’s going to happen? Will she remember her script? For how long do I have to sit here? I contemplate: What do you, the audience, consent to and how do you know what it is that you are consenting to? And what is that feeling … that feeling that keeps you here. Why is it that you don’t just get up and leave?
Photo credit courtesy of the artist.

One & Only, performance view, 2021, The Kitchen, NYC
Put simply: this performance is an evening-length comedy show for an audience of one person. But really, it’s more of a temporal meeting point for an encounter, or maybe even for a relationship to begin. We set terms, negotiate, and bond over the strangeness of this shared experience. And like a first date, we perform for each other.
Written and performed by Sophia Cleary, Directed by Sara Lyons, Lighting Design by Madeline Best, Curated by Matthew Lyons.
Photo Credit: Paula Court.

I have something to say, performance view, 2023, MoCA, Los Angeles, CA
A performance in which I repeatedly announce “I have something to say” until everyone in the audience is quiet.
Soup & Tart: Los Angeles, June 8, 2023. Presented by The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and Active Cultures at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Produced by Active Cultures.
Photo credit: Roadwork, courtesy of the artists and Active Cultures.