Rachel O'Riordan

Rachel O'Riordan is an Irish theatre director. She is the current Artistic Director of the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, Wales.

Born in Cork, Ireland to poet and novelist Robert Anthony Welch and Angela Welch, O'Riordan first trained as a ballet dancer. This rigorous grounding began as a 6-year-old and culminated in a scholarship to the White Lodge, Royal Ballet School and then Mariinsky Ballet (formerly Kirov). She then studied English and Theatre studies at Queen Mary, University of London before completing her phD entitled Shakespeare's Physical Texts at the University of Ulster.

Spending most of her twenties as a choreographer and movement director, from to 2002 to 2011 O'Riordan co-founded and ran the Ransom theatre company in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she notably directed the production Hurricane, which starred Richard Dormer and told the story of snooker legend Alex Higgins. The show was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and received almost universally positive criticism earning it a season in London's west-end and off Broadway in New York City. The success of Hurricane secured Rachel a season with the Peter Hall Company Theatre company where she directed August Strindberg's play, Miss Julie, and an adaption of George Orwell's Animal Farm at the Theatre Royal in Bath, England.

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