"I'm serious about comedy"

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Rachel Michaela is an Albuquerque native and began her study of acting in 2015 under Roger Corman Studios legend Eb Lottimer (Albuquerque). She began studying improv under Ben Taxy at Santa Fe Improv in 2016. That same year she went on to study comedy under Lesly Kahn (Los Angeles), and was honored to be mentored by the great Sam Christensen (Burbank) until his death in 2019.

Rachel has performed in hundreds of performances  at The Box Theater in Albuquerque as a member of Albuquerque's only Harold team Big Feelings (2017-2018), longform team The Hive (2018-2019), and The Show (2019-2022), the longest running  short-form improv show in New Mexico. In 2019 she became a founding member of The Faculty Lounge, New Mexico's longest running professional longform improv team performing in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas, NM. The Faculty Lounge was also selected to perform at the District Improv Festival in Washington DC in 2023. 

In 2020 she was named Lead Instructor in Santa Fe and helped to rebuild the only two improv schools in the city different--Stage Santa Fe and Santa Fe Improv.  One of her favorite pastimes is coaching and teaching students in improv and performance. She has also led corporate team building workshops and assisted in facilitating a study measuring how the techniques of improvisation enhance professional performance and well-being. Rachel has taught hundreds of improv students both virtually and in the classroom. In 2024 she became Executive Director of Improv New Mexico, a 501(c)(3) non-profit with the mission to transform lives and communities across New Mexico through the power of improv and her statewide programming, IMPROV4NEWMEXICO ™ (IMPROV4NM ™). Learn more at www.improvnm.org.

Rachel's improv training is extensive. She has studied very closely with Will Hines (UCB/WGIS), Jim Woods (UCB/WGIS), Alex Berg (Convoy), Brandon  Gardner (UCB), Carla Cackowski and Craig Cackowski (Orange Tuxedo), Joel  Spence (UCB/WGIS), Nick Armstrong (RISE Comedy), Jamie Moyer (RISE Comedy, Second City Chicago), Amey Goerlich (UCB  NY/Chaos Bloom), Rachael Mason (Second City Chicago), Megan Hovde (2nd City  Chicago), Jay Sukow (Second City Chicago), Dave Razowski (Second City  Chicago), Shannon O’Niell (RaaaatScraps, NY), and Ronnie Adrian (UCB). She has also  studied and performed Shakespearan improv with Improv Boston and The Nursery (UK). 

As an October 2023 graduate of The Groundlings Writer’s Lab under Annie Sertich and Leonard Robinson, Rachel passed with flying colors and received rave reviews.  Groundling Mainstage alum Mindy  Sterling even made her way backstage after the final student showcase to tell Rachel that her work was so creative and innovative that she's "never seen anything like it before!" Rachel has been invited to return to Los Angeles to continue with The Groundlings in their Advanced Writer’s Lab.  Rachel has also performed alongside comedic greats Bob Odenkirk (Albuquerque), Neil Casey (Santa Fe), and Will Hines (2024 Santa Fe Cloudtop Comedy Festival). She has is also a recurring guest on Matt Besser’s Improv4Humans podcast.

 Rachel is a SAG-AFTRA commercial, film, and TV actor and has been  accepted into The Barrow Group Acting School (NY). You can  see her recurring as Ruby in Walker Independence (CW, HBO), and as reporter Heather Ramirez in feature film Cop vs Killer (Amazon, YouTube,  Tubi).

Rachel is a commercial, film, and TV actress represented by The O’Agency in Albuquerque, NM.