Improv comedy troupe God’s Been Drinking is not like anything else you’ll find in the Big Easy. You won’t exactly see your “run of the mill” kind of comedy here. The troupe means business. It’s edgy and smart, and you honestly never know what will happen next.

Every Thursday night, Le Chat Noir Cabaret and Theatre on St. Charles Avenue offers New Orleanians a different kind of entertainment.

God’s Been Drinking is a long-form improv comedy group, which means that everything is completely improvised and nothing is scripted. One suggestion from the audience is the basis for an entire one-act play, built onstage before the audience.

The troupe includes Yvonne Landry, Nick Lopez, Sean Patton, Rory Windhorst, Alejandra Cejudo, Ian Hoch and Bill Dykes as they improvise their way through hilarious scenes onstage.

Lopez, drama/communications senior, Hoch, drama/communications junior, and Cejudo, A’04, are the newest members of the troupe, fresh from their stint at the Comedy Conservatory, a program that teaches comedy classes to professional actors who are interested in learning about the art of performing improvisational comedy.

The Comedy Conservatory is the only theatre in the South that teaches improv comedy to students in all its forms, according to Landry. Landry, 32, is the director of the Comedy Conservatory and the founder of God’s Been Drinking.

“We’ve been doing this for over two years,” Landry said, “and we are still the only thing like this in New Orleans.”

The troupe has only three of its original members remaining, but with each new member that has joined, Landry said she thinks the comedy just gets better and better.

“I love these people very much, and I love what we do. We are very passionate,” Landry said. “I’m so lucky to have a job where I get to watch people play make believe in front of me all day long.”

Fellow actor Lopez agreed. “I get to act like a kid in front of people and they clap for me,” Lopez said.

Lopez has appeared in a number of productions, but his combined passions of theatre and comedy have come together in God’s Been Drinking.

“With God’s Been Drinking, you get a happy medium between improv and theatre. We make the theatre crowd happy and the comedy crowd happy,” Lopez said.

Hoch has been with the troupe for six months. He said he thinks the city isn’t really diversified yet with its choices of entertainment. But he does think that the troupe is a great new entertainment alternative, especially for students.

“It’s a really exciting thing to do on the weekends,” Hoch said. “We’re a far cry from any play, but we’re different.”

Patton, 26, is one of the troupe’s original members. Patton is also a local stand-up comedian with another comedy group, Comedy Invasion. He said that he and his fellow improvisers have made God’s Been Drinking’s shows into an alternative to “run of the mill sitcom humor.”

“We strive to test the boundaries of not only our senses of humor, but of the audience’s as well,” he said.

Cejudo, 23, who played Lysistrata in last year’s production of “Lysistrata,” but said she really found her niche with improv comedy and feels lucky to be a part of the troupe.

“They’re a very supportive team, and we support each other through everything. We’re like a family,” she said.

Cejudo is a true comedienne, a female comedian, because when asked why people should come see the show, she could only reply, “If you like to have fun, and if you poop … come to the show”

Other talented improvisers often appear as guests onstage with the troupe.

“Once every eight weeks, we fly in a professional improviser to teach and perform with us,” said Landry.

In January, “MAD TV” writer Bob Dassie appeared with God’s Been Drinking. In March, “Saturday Night Live’s” Bill Cott performed with the troupe as well. Cott does voice-overs for Saturday Night Live’s animated features “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” and “The X Presidents.”

Every Friday and Saturday night you can catch many of the members of God’s Been Drinking in another comedy show called Comedy Sportz, which pits two comedy teams against each other, complete with its own trained referee and a final champion chosen by audience applause. This new comedy form is sweeping the nation, but is only licensed in 22 cities in the country and New Orleans is one of them.

Nicole Wroten can be reached at [email protected].