Off script
Lower Left picks up local improv ball and runs with it

If you trust in your authentic self, the funny will flow. And maybe even something fabulous, magical and genuine that you never before thought yourself capable of, let alone in front of an audience of strangers.

That’s the philosophy of Durango’s latest entrants on the improvisational theatre scene, Lower Left Improv – and something they espouse to the folks flocking to their improv classes over the last few years.

“People always say, ‘Oh I’m not funny.’ But I tell them, I can guarantee this will be funny just because you’re having fun,” explained one of Lower Left’s co-founders Cindy Laudadio-Hill­. 

Lower Left – named for our little corner of the state – is made up of Laudadio-Hill, Mary Quinn and Sarah Syverson, of “Raven Narratives” story-telling fame. It was founded two years ago by Laudadio-Hill and Quinn, who later recruited Syverson, a former member with Quinn of the now-defunct Durango Dot Comedy.

Laudadio-Hill and Quinn are both alums of Chicago’s famed Second City school of improv. Quinn spent six years there after being encouraged by her theatre professor at Fort Lewis College, Ginny Davis, to attend.

“She pushed me to move and I did – I packed up my car and went. I auditioned and got in,” Quinn said.

Despite this common thread, Laudadio-Hill and Quinn met in Durango when Laudadio-Hill, fleeing the Front Range during the pandemic, came to visit a friend in Durango. 

“I really wanted to do some improv,” said Laudadio-Hill, who ended up moving full-time to Durango last year. A corporate trainer with her husband by day, she has been performing and studying improv since the ’90s all over the world, from Chicago to New York, L.A. and Denver, where she started an improv festival. During her pandemic trip here, she googled “improv in Durango,” and low and beyond found that auditions were being held by Quinn and fellow improv actor Jeff Graves for an upcoming show. “I got lucky, and these guys picked me,” she recalled.

As Quinn recalls, it was “love at first sight” (but not in a romantic way, more in a jovial partner Starsky and Hutch or Abott and Costello way). “When she walked on stage, I knew I met my improv soul mate,” said Quinn.

The resulting show, “Devise and Conquer,” ran for about a year at the Durango Arts Center, although it was “COVID times,” so no one’s really sure.

“Mary and I have a very similar love and theory of improv,” said Laudadio-Hill. “There’s a lot of unspoken understanding of the art form.”

Yes, art form. See, aside from their shared training at Second City, the two bonded over a mutual love bordering on obsession of all things Larry David. The creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” David is considered the god of improv, which by the way people spend their whole lives studying and trying to perfect. So yes, an art form.

Over this shared love, the two became besties, not only finishing each other’s sentences but sharing coffee, jokes and the stage ever since.

“I have her listed as ‘The Cindy,’ in my phone contacts,” Quinn said.

It is this sororal chemistry that led to the founding two years ago of Lower Left, with the two doing their first show in August 2021. They later brought Syverson on board, who knew Quinn not only from Durango Dot Comedy, but the Raven Narratives and Syverson’s “Purple Fox Conundrum,” in which Quinn played a pastor in the Church of the Cell Phone (written coincidentally by the Telegraph’s own Zach Hively.)

Syverson said prior to joining, she had become a “vole” for four years, taking a hiatus from performing to “do other things.” In addition, she had become disenchanted with improv, where often as the only woman, she was typecast as a secretary, mom or – gasp – grandma. “It just wasn’t that joyful,” Syverson said.

But then, she saw Laudadio-Hill and Quinn perform, and decided to come out of self-imposed exile. “When I got to play with these women, I felt this extraordinary feeling of connection and community that they were creating,” she said. “That’s pretty rare, and you need to trust each other as an improv team. That, paired with their skill level, it just created this atmosphere where you don’t go to this base layer of butt jokes.”

(Not that there’s anything wrong with butt jokes, but as Syverson said, they can get old really quickly.)

Since forming, Lower Left has done about 24 shows in Durango and Cortez, including two sold-out shows earlier this summer for their sketch production (think “SNL”), “Mind Your Manners.” Their classes have also taken off, with plans to offer an expanded menu of beginning and intermediate courses this fall in their renovated office, upstairs in the Main Mall.

“We laugh a lot, and I think people saw that and wanted to learn it, so we started having classes, and here we are,” Laudadio-Hill said.

The three women said they envision a “new era” of improv, where you can only portray who you are in real life (i.e. no taking on personas of other races or nationalities), where consent is sexy (ask before you touch your partner on stage or – god forbid – go in for a kiss), and always have one another’s backs. “It’s about playing to your strengths and finding relatable moments,” Quinn said.

They also want a safe space of support and acceptance where failing is OK, even encouraged. “On day one, I tell my classes, ‘We’re going to make your anxiety your superpower,” said Quinn. “When you step into that fear of failing, that’s where you can excel at improv. You want to fail over and over, because clowns fail all the time … except for the scary ones.”

At its very core, Laudadio-Hill notes, improv is really acting, just off script – which has its advantages. “I’ve never flubbed a line off script,” she said.

And lucky for local audiences, Lower Left will be going off script publicly very soon with the first-of-its-kind “Mic Drop: Standup vs. Improv” show Aug. 10 at the Durango Arts Center and Aug. 17 and Cortez’s Sunflower Theater. Just as its name implies, the show will be part standup and part improv, with the improv section riffing on the standup themes. The show is the result of reciprocal appreciation and cross pollination of the drag, standup and improv communities.

“The membrane is porous,” said Laudadio-Hill.

The idea for the show came up when local drag queen Aria PettyOne approached Quinn and local standup comic/drag king Bailey Carlson about the idea. The two then roped in Taylor Lennox, owner of the (ingeniously named) “So I Can Sleep” comedy writing and production company. “I said absolutely, let’s glue this thing together,” Quinn said. “We’re really trying to incorporate the whole community into our shows.”

And like improv itself, Laudadio-Hill notes that the whole funny experimental ball of wax is being made up as they go along. “You gotta just take it as it comes,” she said. “We’re building a bridge to somewhere, you just don’t know where.”

But regardless of where it takes them, you can bet it will be well worth the entertaining trip. 

“The world needs more laughter,” Quinn said.

For more on Lower Left Improv, go to www.lowerleftimprov.com.