Regina Saisi Joined Company: 1987 First Improv Class: The Spaghetti Factory First BATS Class: May 1987 with Dan O'Connor BATS Coach: Since 1987 Other BATS Service: Head Coach, early 1990s; Artistic Director, 2002-2005 Contact: company@improv.org Regina Saisi has been a professional actor/improvisor and teacher for 20 years. Her theatrical experience includes work with such directors as Maria Irene Fornes, Jose Rivera, Darrah Cloud and Gary Leon Hill. In addition to her stage work she has worked extensively in commercial television and industrial video.

The focus of her work throughout her career has been improvisational theatre. Throughout the 80's and 90's she has been deeply involved in the San Francisco Bay Area's fertile improvisation community, helping to start several improv companies including Riot Squad, Improv Theatre and Pulp Playhouse, and her current company True Fiction Magazine.

More than just an improviser, Saisi's work has frequently pushed the boundaries of improvisational theory and practice. With Improv Theatre, for example, she helped pioneer the improvised "long form" taking improvisational theatre from simple scenes into full-length, multi-act narratives. Pulp Playhouse employed extensive genre study to define both storytelling style and storytelling structure.

Saisi has performed and taught extensively with BATS Improv and was appointed artistic director in 2002. With BATS Saisi has both directed and acted in long forms. She has traveled to New York, Seattle, Amsterdam and Helsinki to play Theatresports. She's won 3 medals--one gold, one silver, and one bronze--at home for tournaments.

She has created her most sophisticated work with True Fiction Magazine, a four-person company that has spent the last five years perfecting a long form improvisation technique where narrative structure is created "on-the-fly." In addition to their theatrical performances, True Fiction performs regularly on the internationally syndicated radio program West Coast Live.

Saisi is a regular artist-in-residence at several San Francisco Bay Area high schools where she teaches and directs teenage acting students in different improv formats.

Q&A With Regina Saisi

First BATS Show: 1986, the first BATS show in San Francisco.

Favorite Formats: Too many to list

Funniest Moment on the BATS Stage: A scene in the time it took Ed Alter and I to exchange clothes. Or was that Dave Bushnell?

Artistic Influences: Christo

Favorite Movie: Some Like it Hot

Favorite Theatre: You're a Good Man Charlie Brown