Instructor
Mary Ashley Bannister’s love for improv was sparked in high school as a theater major at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, a less glamorous version of the FAME school in Lexington, KY.
Many years later in Los Angeles, she became slightly obsessive and studied at IO West, Second City Hollywood, UCB, The Pack Theater, WE Improv, and MI Westside, along with many workshops and master classes with some of the world’s best improvisers. Her favorite teacher, Holly Laurent, taught her that the most captivating things about a performer are often the things that make them unique, which they are the most afraid of showing others. She also performed regularly around the city on a musical improv team and a monoscenes team.
Here in Albuquerque, she has taken classes at the Box and ImprovNM. She believes strongly in the power of improv for communication, self-confidence, resilience, collaboration, risk-taking, and, of course, the friends we make along the way.