Valerie Weak Email & Phone Number

San Francisco Bay Area

I have 20 years of experience as an actor in the San Francisco Bay Area for theater companies including the San Francisco and Marin Shakespeare Festivals, Theatreworks, Word for Word and CenterREP.

Stars represents me for on-camera, voiceover and commercial print work. I booked the very first voiceover spot I read for - a television commercial for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. It ran on cable stations in Georgia for 2 years.

Young Conservatory is ACT's extracurricular education program for children and teens. I teach beginning and advanced acting to students in grades 7-12, as well as provide one-on-one coaching for students who are preparing for important auditions, like college, high school or summer program admissions. Studio ACT offers classes to adults of all backgrounds and levels of experience in a variety of performance-related areas, taught by local professionals. I am an instructor in the multi-level acting track, teaching beginning, intermediate and advanced acting.

In this invaluable component of medical student training designed to improve communication skills, I've played patients scared to face an upcoming surgery, or with a primary agenda of hiding the behavior of an abusive spouse, and many others. I've also trained other actors in this work for programs including exams, clerkships, and national studies, and consulted with medical faculty to create and develop new characters and instructional modules. All programs include: memorization of case details, accurate portrayal of character, student evaluation and feedback to student.

In programs designed to improve communication skills, interview style and rapport, I've worked directly with police officers playing characters including rape and domestic violence victims, as well as crime suspects, in high stakes role play scenarios, and provided feedback to officers on their skills.

I directed at least 2 student productions here every summer for over 10 years! For 6 summers, I ran the A-Camp program, teaching 12-16 year olds acting, improv, and theatrical voice and movement as well as direct them in a presentation of 2 and 3 person scenes from published plays. I was on hiatus from 2010-2012, but returned in summer 2013

I was the primary coordinator for all Word for Word Youth Arts program workshops and residencies, as well as professional development for classroom teachers and administrators. In this job, I worked with classroom teachers to integrate our workshops with their curriculum, then matched teaching artists with classroom teachers to implement the workshops.

San Francisco Bay Area

For Golden Thread's production of 'Night Over Erzinga' I guided an 8 year old cast member on through building basic theater skills, creating characters, and retention of lines and blocking. Additionally, I facilitated communication between the director/production team and the young actor and her family.

I worked in several programs for Cal Shakes Department of Artistic Learning. In summer camp programs I was a voice, movement and acting instructor as well as a director of student productions. During the school year, I did classroom visits and artistic residencies for schools that are attending the student matinee program. In Fall 2008, I did an 8 week residency with students at Oakland's Claremont Middle School.

B.A., Theatre Arts

Professional Development Program

Education record

Education record