If Margaret Cho and George Lopez had a love child, it would be Sandra Valls! - Georgia Ragsdale, comic
Sandra Valls is a brash, high energy, outrageously funny, in-your-face Latina comic… and then some! Her comedy career began just after an ex-lover broke up with her then signed her up for comedy classes as a consolation prize. (That’s no joke !) An expert at “making lemonade”, Sandra quickly learned to use the stage to motivate, provoke, entertain, and… oh yes… above all, make audiences LAUGH THEIR @#$% OFF!
Sandra performs all over the country and at local comedy clubs in Los Angeles including the world-famous Laugh Factory, The Comedy Store, and The Hollywood Improv . She recently just returned from a very successful run at London’s Comedy Camp where they’re still gasping for air (and no, it’s not because the Brits smoke 10 packs of cigarettes a day). Her television credits include BET’s ComicView, Galavision’s Que Locos, Mun2 Loco Comedy Jam, SiTV’s Latino Laugh Festival, Funny is Funny, Inside Joke, and, more recently, HBO Latino original programming “Habla ”. (Uh…that means, “talk” in Spanish. The ‘H’ is silent.)
Sandra’s honest, explosive comic flair, original writing talents, and her bi-lingual proficiency, have opened the door to such gigs as joining the comedy writing team of Nickelodeon’s smash hit, Taina ;writer, producer, and on-air personality for Off The Roof ,an international show on Mun2 Television, as well as producing and writing for SiTV networks on shows including The Drop (a music show), The Rub (a talk show on sex…imagine that), and, currently producing, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (a talk show on controversial issues… yes she believes in gay marriage). GLAAD has honored her work at Mun2 with a Special Recognition Award for her groundbreaking achievements on behalf of the gay and lesbian community.
But the story begins much earlier in a little town called Scottsbluff, Nebraska (yes you read right) when Sandra was born into a Mexican family (what’s a Mexican doing in a red state?) who quickly moved to Mexico where Sandra spent her formative years and then, at age 6, subsequently, made the “big move” to America (for the record, there was no swimming involved) and then settled in Laredo, Texas (yes, the very one made famous by that annoying song). Sandra attended catholic school but experienced a very difficult first day of school as she didn’t speak one word of English (que?) and the nuns would charge 5 cents for every Spanish word spoken. (dios mio !) Needless to say, she never had lunch money throughout the first grade. As the years passed by, the only way Sandra coped with catholic school was acting a fool, playing in a garage band, and the assurance that, every now and then, a strong gust of wind would come along and blow the girls’ blue plaid skirts up to the heavens. (Thank god for uniforms.)
Sandra attended the University of Texas at Austin where she studied acting and starred in numerous musical productions including Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, and Merrily We Roll Along, for which she won an Austin Circle of Theatres Best Actress Award. She then ventured forth to New York City (What? An unmarried, childless, Mexican, catholic girl off to NYC by herself?) to study Musical Theater and then found herself in Boston fronting an eight piece R&B horn band. Yes, this girl can sing! I mean, really sing! R&B, rock, blues, you name it! Just ask her when you see her. She’ll break into song for you! This girl can SAAAHNG! It was in Boston where she began doing some serious comedy (oxymoron alert) after that breakup mentioned earlier. It wasn’t until after yet another breakup that Sandra moved… ran… well… escaped… clear across the country to Los Angeles to start anew!
So, if Margaret Cho and George Lopez had a love child it would be Sandra… only she’d have a really big, brown, Asian head.