Artist Profile: Bernardo de Moura Sequeira ’26 on Generating Ideas, Taking Risks, and Doing it All

When Bernardo de Moura Sequeira ’26 stepped on the stage for his first show with the improv group Three Letter Acronym in his sophomore year, he felt like he was “being shot out of a cannon.” Throughout his artistic career at Harvard, Sequeira has not been shy to the high of taking the stage, while also remaining deeply involved behind the scenes.

Sequeira has done it all at Harvard: in addition to TLA, he has performed in multiple Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club productions — most recently starring as Charley in “Merrily We Roll Along” — and he estimates he has been on the Hasty Pudding Theatricals stage upwards of 130 times throughout his four years. Furthermore, he served as Cast Vice President for “HPT 176: 101 Damnations,” where he chose the show’s writers and lyricists, edited the storyline, and worked with the adult professionals who assisted the production.

“I’ve gotten to be an actor, I’ve gotten to be a writer, I’ve gotten to be a producer, and I’ve gotten to do all of those things simultaneously at times, which is just the most enriching and inspiring, and each facet informs the other,” Sequeira said in an interview with The Crimson.

During his childhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sequeira, who was naturally outgoing and talkative, found his outlet on the stage, acting and performing comedy.

“I was ten or so, probably, just doing children’s theater in Rio, and the bug bit me,” he said.

After moving to New York City, Sequeira had the opportunity to work on high-caliber productions with industry professionals through his middle school and high school. At Harvard, he has not slowed down, and he said he will miss its environment of constant opportunity upon graduation in May.

“Hands down, my favorite thing about Harvard has been the people that I met, the people that I’ve befriended, the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I’ve accomplished and not accomplished things with, and I think I’ve had so many awesome opportunities to collaborate — especially in the arts, with people that I think are so talented and inspiring. I’m definitely gonna miss that opportunity,” Sequeira said.

Though Sequeira chose to be heavily involved with extracurriculars here, he acknowledged that there was no right way to attend Harvard.

“My friend and I were talking about this the other day, she was saying, ‘I don’t feel like I really did Harvard. I feel like I had these things that I was doing, but I didn’t do Harvard.’ And that got me thinking that there is no such thing as doing Harvard in a general way, because the Harvard you do is the Harvard that you make for yourself,” Sequeira said.

Sequeira has worn many hats, or rather, many shoes, throughout his various productions at Harvard. For him, his most challenging characters have been the two roles he played in drag for HPT, especially when he had the role of the devil Lucy Fur, a “beautiful, tall woman with leather boots,” in “101 Damnations.”

“It was a really fun challenge to find what about her do I feel like I already have in me? Or, what about her life and her experience sounds like something I could see myself going through? And it’s not like in literal terms — we have all that much in common — but it was really cool to search for the darkness, the treachery, the manipulation, the insecurity, the power hunger in myself,” Sequeira said.

By contrast, Charley Kringas in “Merrily We Roll Along” was a resonant character in a “dream production” for Sequeira, and a rewarding way to cap off his HRDC career.

“I’ve been lucky enough to help bring other people’s visions to life, and also to pursue my own visions and bring them to life. And so this culture of everyone’s writing their own stuff, and everyone’s producing their own stuff, and everyone has a show coming up, and everyone knows each other, so everyone wants to support each other’s work is just the most awesome, most generative environment,” Sequeira said.

Sequeira is currently writing an English creative thesis about two exes who get back together for the purpose of immigration.

When one has their visa revoked, they need a green card. They then fake a marriage, rejoining the couple and their two children. The backdrop of immigration is especially salient today, which made a family dramedy set in this context particularly fascinating.

“The idea of these people who are not a family having to become a family under these high stakes is really interesting because it interrogates: What makes people a family? How do people bond? How do they acclimate to each other? What pushes people’s buttons? That is, I think, the most interesting thing about writing and about acting and about drama in general,” Sequeira said.

Looking ahead towards graduation, Sequeira hopes to put on a staged reading of his thesis, and ideally, one day produce it as a real TV pilot.

“One of the cool things that my time at A.R.T. taught me was the sheer breadth of jobs that exist in the theater,” Sequeira said. “I keep getting these reminders in college that I do have multiple connected aspirations, and they inform each other.”

Sequiera worked as a rehearsal room intern and understudy at the American Repertory Theater during their run of “Romeo and Juliet,” which inspired him to dream big about his career goals. In the future, he now hopes to be a creative producer, working at the crossroads of “technical skill with a creative inclination,” while also continuing to pursue acting on the side.

Sequeira understands the uncertainty of pursuing a career in the arts, but he is nevertheless confident that he will not stop chasing that aspiration. He encourages others at Harvard to break the temptation to play it safe.

“I think also there is such a culture of hedging your bets here, right? You’re always trying to take the safest route or the lowest risk, highest reward route,” Sequeira said. “That’s a thing that I struggle with a lot, is how to move forward and follow my passions when my passions are this sort of precarious thing. And I don’t have an answer to that dilemma, but I certainly would encourage people to do the same, to join me in this.”

— Staff writer Avani Shah-Lipman can be reached at [email protected].