This year at the Fall Arts Festival at Old Mill Park, Tamalpais High School’s Conservatory Theater Ensemble (CTE) will be performing an interactive improv show to start their season off with a bang.
The improv cast consists of nine Tam High students ranging from freshmen to seniors directed by Regina Saisi, long-time guest artist at CTE. The improv cast will be performing in the children’s grove beginning at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sep. 24.
This year marks the 66th annual Fall Arts Festival, which serves as a platform to highlight emerging artists, in addition to the long-standing ones that had part in founding the community. CTE has a long-marked history with the festival. Pre-COVID, they came every year with face painting materials for the kids to advocate for their program, a tradition they are reviving this year for the first time since 2019 in addition to the improv show.
“Since the 1970s we’ve had a face painting booth at the festival, it’s really fun because now it’s to the point where we have people that are 70 years old who face-painted 40 years ago,” Ben Cleaveland, co-program director of CTE said.
“The face painting is going to be run throughout the whole Fall Arts Festival run by the CTE student body… We are going to be raising money for the arts at our school and our guest artists that we love so much,” Anna Kornfeld, a member of the improv cast said.
The improv show is one of the many events hosted in the children’s grove. According to the Fall Arts Festival’s website, in the children’s grove, “Magic, discovery, and creative play awaits! Share in delightful performances and family activities with your budding artists.”
“I volunteer there every year at the children’s booth section, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s a great way that we bring the community together every year, old and young,” Kornfeld said. “It really feels monumental because I remember when I was a little kid and I would watch the people performing in the children’s section and I think it’s really cool because I never thought that one day I would be that person.”
Regina Saisi, director of the improv cast, is a star of improvisation theater, not only in the Bay Area but countrywide. She was involved in the founding of many improvisation theater companies including Improv Playhouse of San Francisco, True Fiction Magazine, Pulp Playhouse, Riot Squad, and BATS School of Improv where she is currently dean.
“For the kids show we’re going to be more inspired off a general theme … instead of an exact title,” Kornfeld said. Once they pick a theme from the audience, the cast will improvise a 20-minute scene incorporating the selected theme.