Next to veteran Mo Urban, dark horse Allana Erickson-Lopez was the most popular comedian among voters in Tucson Weekly’s 2022 Best of Tucson listings. It was the first year she’d been nominated, and she outshone previous contenders with decades more experience.
This is the story of a woman who wandered into her talent and high-dived to the top of it.
“I probably do open mic or a standup at least three times a week,” Erickson-Lopez said. “Improv once a week and Keep Tucson Sketchy, which is the sketch group once a week or twice a week, depending on whether we have a show upcoming. I don’t say ‘no.’”
“Have you ever seen ‘Shark Tank’?” she asked. ‘There’s this thing on ‘Shark Tank’ where they tell the entrepreneurs who have way too many ideas that they’re ‘cursed with opportunity.’ I feel that that’s just me. I’m cursed with opportunity.
“On Wednesdays I will have From the Top rehearsals.”
From the Top is Unscrewed Theater’s musical improv team. She earned membership based on her third audition. From the Top performs on the first Friday of every month. Erickson-Lopez makes her debut at 7:30 p.m. Friday Jan. 6.
“On Thursdays, I usually go to Laff’s (Laff’s Comedy Club’s weekly open mic), but this Thursday I have a show with my little indie improv team.”
That team, All Reddy, includes Unscrewed Theater cast members John Michael Redding and Kate Morter.
On Tuesday she might drop in the Lady Ha Ha standup open mic at Bumsted’s, and on some Fridays, she performs in Lady Ha Ha’s Kitty Ha Ha show at El Jefe Cat Lounge. The audience there comprises 30 comedy fans and 35 cats.
On weekends, she’s often included in lineups for several established local comedy showcases. And she surfaces in specialty comedy events like the recent “Depression Is No Joke” showcase. That, too, was hosted by Lady Ha Ha, which promotes its shows and mics as welcoming to all, but especially to marginalized people.
What, exactly ignited this explosion of comedy energy?
It started when she discovered a Facebook invitation from Tucson’s Female Storytellers, an organization founded in 2012 to promote feminism and encourage women to express themselves. FST curates a monthly showcase of women telling stories inspired by the month’s prompts. More details are at fstorytellers.com.
“Back in 2015, I wrote a story for FST, and I got to perform it,” Erickson-Lopez said. “(It) was about not being comfortable with my weight. It was fine”
“On my second go ‘round . . . I inadvertently had jokes in my story. (It) was about this friend I had worked with at the Humane Society. When we became friends, she asked if I wanted to run a 5K. I said, ‘sure’. I knew nothing about what a 5K was. I had to start training for it. Then on the day we were supposed to run together, she got stuck at work and couldn’t make it.
“So I ran it by myself. It was just about feeling proud that, even though I just did it to make a friend, I. . . had set a goal and accomplished it.”
The event’s host, Bethany Evans, a standup comic and founding member of FST, suggested that Erickson should try standup comedy.
“Then, coincidentally, the next week a friend was going to do these improv classes with (actor and improviser) Eric Rau, and she said, ‘Do you want to come with me?’
“I’ve always loved ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’, and then she said, ‘It’s good for just public speaking.’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go with you.’ And then improv became my baby.
“Improv felt like a way for me to not think. It teaches you to listen to what’s happening and react to what’s happening in the moment. It is built on a pillar of ‘always say yes’. What I loved about it is I got to create with a partner or with a team of partners, this little story that happens and then it goes away. You can’t fix it. You can’t change it. It’s just whatever happened in the moment.”
And then people laugh.
“Oh God! When people laugh, it is a drug that I did not know I loved.”
Even as her commitment to improv grew, she continued to work on her standup sets. She signed up for a standup class with Urban at Tucson Improv Movement (TIM). Urban also hosts comedy shows at Black Rock Brewery and runs Lady Ha Ha with fellow Tucson comedian Priscilla Fernandez
In her TIM class showcase, Erickson-Lopez debuted 3 minutes of fresh material, some of which she says still turn up in her sets. Then she started going regularly to a Monday night open mic at The Surly Wench Pub. Roxy Merrari, who hosted that mic, encouraged her and began to include her in Wench showcases.
Then a Facebook post by Keep Tucson Sketchy (KTS) caught her eye. It was an open call for an ensemble to create a sketch show along the lines of “Saturday Night Live.” In the months after the first KTS show, she began showing up for their writers’ meetings. She won a tiny role in the second show and by the third show, she was writing sketches. Original KTS member Rich Gary now considers her one of the ensemble’s best writers.
With KTS, Erickson-Lopez feels like she finally may have found her comedy home.
“I just found a space that I can inhabit that makes sense for me, because I think the biggest thing I’ve always wanted to be and still want to be is a comedy writer, if I could write jokes for everybody and get paid for it ,” she said.
In this flurry of comedy, Erickson credits her husband, Franki Lopes, with being her ballast and lifeline.
“If I could say a last word,” she said, “it’s that my husband is my biggest supporter and I one hundred percent believe that I would not be as far along as I am if he weren’t always at a mic with me or telling me ‘Hey, get out of the house and go do something.’”
More Comedy This Week
El Jefe Cat Lounge, 3025 N. Campbell Avenue, Ste. 141, 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, eljefecatlounge.com, $18, reservations only, capacity is 30, 21 and older, BYOB and snacks, Kitty Ha Ha, hosted by Lady Ha Ha Comedy, lineup: Autumn Horvat, Nicole Riesgo, Sera Sometimes, Jessie Sweeney, Mo Urban, Matt Ziemak
Laff’s Comedy Caffe, 2900 E. Broadway Boulevard, 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, laffstucson.com, $25, Daniel Eachus, winner of multiple prestigious comedy awards and star of at least one, he’s on Dry Bar Comedy with his special, “A Mild and Skinny Guy.”
Unscrewed Theater, 4500 E. Speedway Boulevard, unscrewedtheatre.org, $8, live or remote, $5 kids. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, From the Top Improvised Musical; Saturday, Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m. Family Friendly Improv Comedy. 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9, Improv Drop-ins, in person and online, free.
Voltron Brewing Taproom, 330 S. Toole Avenue, Suite 200, zanelamprey.com, 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan 5, $24, $40 VIP, Zane Lamprey, host of award-winning television shows “Three Sheets” and “Drinking Made Easy!”
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2023.
