Regina Melzer

Regina Melzer's artful life has grown out of Improv and Shakespeare. She first dipped her toe in the pool-of-performance when she was 8 years old in an all adult improv workshop which took place every Saturday at Fort Mason in her hometown of San Francisco.

Improv has been a part of her life ever since, taking her through training, with Jim Cranna, a former member of Del Close's improv group "The Committee"; a UCB founding member, Ian Roberts; then onward by passing UCB 301 and now into the Core Track program at The Groundlings. Back in 7th grade the only thing that settled her fidgeting at her desk was getting to read the role of Mustardseed, a fairy, in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Like improv, Shakespeare has been an old, steady friend by her side through the years, sometimes taking a bigger focus and other times less-(like when most of her time was consumed with playing basketball because her high school didn't offer a theater program)-but ever buzzing in the background of her imagination. Would you believe though that if it wasn't for Shakespeare, she might not have gotten into college? It's true! And she used her college education to actually focus in studying his works as an English Lit major but also had the chance to portray Gertrude in Hamlet and one of the three Witches in MacBeth. "Being in Shakespy's plays stretched my acting chops in ways I could not have imagined. To this day, I still sleep with my big, bad, Riverside Shakespeare book next to me-ok no, that's where my fiancé sleeps, but I do see my big, bad Riverside Shakespy book in my closet-office everyday! Of course I still have that book-how could I get rid of a book Jeremy Piven flipped though as I stumped him with an existential question about celebrity?"

After college a friendship blossomed between Regina and the camera, and now, well, they birth little moving-picture-babies together. Outside of the acting world, you might find Regina driving her 1979 VW Bus to support her friends' artful expressions or to sing karaoke!