Meet Skintight Outrage, the one-and-only improvisation (improv) club at DU. This cordial comedy club has remained a pivotal part of DU’s comedy community for nearly a decade and plans on continuing its reign over DU comedy for the next decades to come. 

According to Isla Lader, a leader of the improv club, Skintight Outrage, (allegedly, started in 2013. As for the name, it is just as mysterious in origin. “A lot of people raise eyebrows, but [the name Skintight Outrage] is so quintessentially us. It’s kind of a legacy at this point,” Lader said.

While the DU campus was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Skintight Outrage experimented with multiple forms of community outreach. The club hosted JackBox video game nights and started a co-hosted podcast called “Show Some Skin,” still available on Spotify. 

In fact, Skintight Outrage’s weekly shows were one of the first events to return to DU’s campus after the lockdown, the cast members working closely with campus security to make sure they could safely resume in-person weekly shows.  

“There’s lots of acapella groups and lots of theatre on campus, but there’s no comedy [groups]. Especially after COVID, we just needed a space to laugh,” Lader said. 

The nature of Skintight Outrage’s improv shows is naturally organic, witty, dirty and unpredictable. During a typical improv show, cast members will perform nine or so skits, and before each skit, audience members have the opportunity to provide suggestions and even props for the cast members to use in their next skit. Whatever happens next is truly unpredictable. You may have two pirates quarreling within a Bob Ross painting, a dance party in a McDonald’s bathroom or even attend a conference on the safety of window washing. 

Each show contains a limitless gamble of sly humor and banter. The possibilities of ridiculous locations and characters keep audiences entertained throughout the entire performance. 

According to the cast, this structure of organized beauty provides both cast and audience members with the ability to learn from failure, embrace their kookiness and take life less seriously. The skit prompts only serve as ways to elicit comedic thinking, whereas the outcome of the performances themselves rely on a good dynamic between the performers and the audience to become truly magical.

Skintight Outrage’s weekly shows are on Wednesdays in the Lindsay auditorium at 8:30 p.m. Be prepared to laugh, shout and feed the crew’s muse with outrageous skit suggestions. 

Interested in becoming a Skintight Outrage performer? Auditions will be held on Oct. 9, with callbacks on Oct. 17. For more information about Skintight Outrage, visit the links below: 

Crimson Connect: Skintight Outrage

Instagram: @skintightoutrage

Facebook: Skintight Outrage

Website: skintightoutrage.com 

Spotify: Show Some Skin