About Bianca
Bianca wears many hats.
She started singing, dancing, and acting at the age of five and has been in love with the arts ever since. She has roots in Massachusetts, France, and the Philippines, but home is wherever she can make art with her friends. After graduating from Skidmore College with a degree in Theatre, she moved to Chicago, Illinois to pursue a career as an actor and theatre artist. She was lucky enough to work on a few incredible projects before the pandemic changed everything six months into her big move. After her lease was up, she moved back to Boston to be closer to family during a difficult and uncertain time. There, she ended up forging a new path and finding her place as a theatre educator, a career she always knew she would pursue at some point, it was just a matter of when. Miss Rona said, “How about NOW?” Bianca is thrilled to be back in Chicago as of September 2022 to continue pursuing her career as a theatre artist and educator. She is also pursuing a dual masters degree in Social Work and Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago and expects to graduate in May 2026.
Bianca’s passion for teaching blossomed over her seven summers working at Reagle Music Theatre’s Youth Summer Theatre Workshop. Their colleagues have recognized their teaching style as bubbly, curious, patient, and rooted in empathy. Even for students who do not intend to pursue theatre, they strive to create learning experiences that help them build confidence while sharing the value of art and storytelling in all forms. She is committed to empowering young artists to take risks, follow their passions, become excellent collaborators, and grow their own unique voice. Bianca understands how formative an arts education can be for a person’s social, emotional, intellectual, and creative development; she intends to be a resource for future artists and leaders of the world.
In addition to teaching and performing, Bianca is also a trained intimacy director and choreographer. This growing field has become increasingly recognized as crucial to any storytelling process that involves moments of physical intimacy between characters or charged topics that require extra care. Bianca became interested in this work in college when she began training as a combatant and fight choreographer. They fell in love with the craft of keeping actors both physically and emotionally safe during heightened moments on stage and found self-empowerment in gaining the proper tools to make rehearsal experiences better. Bianca’s goal as an intimacy designer for stage and film is to facilitate processes informed by consent-based, anti-racist, anti-bias, and trauma-informed practices that allow actors of all backgrounds to feel confident and taken care of in their work. Learn more about the organizations she has trained with here and here.
Outside of the theatre world, Bianca is a passionate singer/songwriter and poet. You can learn more about her music endeavors here and read some of her poetry here. She has served on the Art Committee and as the Operations Chair on the Associate Board of Awakenings, a Chicago-based non-profit arts organization dedicated to making visible the artistic expressions of sexual assault survivors. Sometimes she even fancies herself a dancer. In January 2023, she joined Queer Dance Freakout, a dance company of multidisciplinary queer and trans artists. While their artistic home is at Elastic Arts in Logan Square, they have performed at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre as part of the LookOut Series and were featured guest artists in The Fly Honey Show at Thalia Hall.
Testimonials
“As a fight director and theatre teacher, Bianca prepared thoroughly and created a comfortable and upbeat yet very focused and productive collaborative environment. Bianca was the most effective fight choreographer I have worked with in over twenty years at my school. Though most of our fight directors have been older and more experienced, none of them brought the degree of professionalism that Bianca did. She poured time and energy into the production, bringing wonderful ideas into production meetings and rehearsals…Our students loved working with her, as did I. As our teacher of middle school theatre courses, fight and intimacy choreographer, and member of our faculty, Bianca was highly effective and a real pleasure to call a colleague. She knows who she is, and she is wonderful.”
—Dan Halperin, Director of Theatre and Performing Arts Department Head at Noble and Greenough School
“Her constant care for the students and passion for their artistic growth have been an essential part of the classroom environment she has created…I have found few that can match Bianca’s tireless commitment to the artistic growth of their students. She will always take the extra time to meet with her students out of class to work with them on whatever they desire. She has a keen ability to listen to them and hear where they are, always addressing them with tact, care and empathy...It is clear that Bianca cares deeply for her students and is willing to go above and beyond to allow them the space to share themselves freely and safely.”
—Jesse Garlick, Theatre Educator and Acting Teacher, Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston, Newton South High School
“Anyone who has embarked on a shared project with Bianca has the experience of working with a person full of humor, compassion, intelligence, with a grace and confidence well beyond her years...I email notes to students about their plays periodically throughout the course, and Bianca has been the one and only student who has ever, in my several years of teaching, consistently written me back to thank me for my feedback. While this may seem like a small gesture – I felt this act demonstrated a deep recognition of my humanity. Perhaps this is the most impressive trait of Bianca’s: she absolutely recognizes the humanity of every person she encounters. Above all her other wonderful qualities, she is a deeply respectful and empathetic human being.”
— Julia May Jonas, Playwright & Director, Lecturer of Playwriting at Skidmore College
From students in Bianca's classes at Noble and Greenough School:
“Ms. Thompson did an amazing job of supporting me and pushing me to be the best actor I could.” “She always kept a smile on my face.” “I knew she was always rooting for me and there to support me.” “She was very kind and dealt well with intense material.” “This class challenged me by encouraging me to make my voice heard and step out of my comfort zone.” “It was a judgment-free zone.” “I get really nervous when sharing in class so when I did in this class, it felt like such a safe environment and I wanted to do it more.”
Bianca lives, works, and writes from Chicago, IL. She is fully vaccinated (and boosted!) and available to travel for collaborations.
Contact Bianca for more info.