BIO
Valerie O’Riordan grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles; the youngest of three children to a funny, creative mother and strict policeman father. She graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in theatre, then moved to San Francisco and studied for a year at the American Conservatory Theater’s advanced training program. Many years later, she returned to A.C.T. to complete her M.F.A. studies, then wrote a thesis titled In the Wings, about her controversial journey as a performing understudy in A.C.T.’s Angels in America.
Before-then-during her stint as a married-with-children artist she directed plays with an itinerate theatre company out of the Haight Ashbury, taught Libby Appel’s Mask Characterization acting technique and ran a freelance theatre publicist business. When her kids were little she landed her job as the first female drama director at an all-boys’ Catholic high school in San Francisco and retired 22 years later.
Valerie is a recent transplant to Lake County (CA), where she lives on a beautiful lake with Shiloh the cat, who meowed his way into her life on 9/11 a couple years ago. They are living happily ever after, thanks for asking. She enrolls herself in college theatre courses because she’s retired now and, as a life-long learner, figures why the hell not. In May she will attend a writing retreat in Santa Fe with Ann Randolph, to continue work on her memoir. In June, 42 years later, she will attend an A.C.T. reunion in NYC on her 67th birthday.
Valerie’s earliest noticed work was a rhymed poem about death, titled And Life Goes On…penned the day her crush didn’t take notice on the way to Mr. Pikop’s 7th period Creative Writing class in her senior year. The poem was published in Lakewood High School’s Accolade Magazine that same year, 1975.
In her thirty-six years as an acting teacher, more than half were spent as the first-female drama director at an all-boys’ Catholic high school in San Francisco. One day she answered a want ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, and a week later she landed the job in the first of two interviews.
In her debut memoir EVERY THREE SECONDS: THE LAST LESSON Valerie O’Riordan shares the tales, trials, and titillations of her years in charge of an 1,100-seat theatre that felt more like a zoo, with her as the keeper of hormonal male monkey-squirrels. In her first semester she contemplated quitting many times; with new colleagues who kept a safe distance, and a hands-off administration relieved she had the chops (after the former director committed suicide in tech week). What took her off guard the most was that big-man-on-campus best buddy duo who made it their business to harass, tease and torment her with closed-mouth, smart ass grins. It was during the first holiday break that Valerie asked Santa for proverbial balls, and she proceeded onward with caution; show after show and year after year, that Protestant-raised gal eventually found an artistic home under the dogma of the Catholic church.
The term ‘every three seconds’ started as an off-handed joke about the amount of time it takes a boy to think of his penis. It became the real-life story that will resonate with a theatre-loving audience, from students and parents to teachers and administrators. Everyone has a teacher they remember. A teacher who made them laugh, helped them enjoy learning and allowed them to feel comfortable in themselves. EVERY THREE SECONDS is a cross between Erma Bombeck and Anne Lamont, and in it O’Riordan tells the story of how her passion for theatre and an inherited sense of humor got her through.