Comedy troupe ready to entertain Bloomington

"All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble…auditions today, performance tonight!" These flyers have been seen on campus in previous years, but people do not know exactly what this means. What is the "Boy in the Bubble," and what is it all about?\n"All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble" is a self-scripted sketch comedy group. It was founded three years ago by Justin Treasure, senior Brad Fletcher and Carly Rotter. These three aspiring comedians drew their inspiration from a comedy theater in Indianapolis, "Too Much Like Me to Make Me Go Blind." Since the group was not given the rights to use the scripts from the Indy theater, it formed a new group called "All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble."\n"The cast is made up of a group of about nineteen people," said Kaitlin Kovach, a sophomore who was in the troupe last year. Kovach knew Treasure in high school, and he contacted her about auditions when she came to IU last fall. Her audition included "a lot of improv games, pantomime, and then we were given a script to read off of."\n"Our shows are like Saturday Night Live parodies," Treasure said. "They are based on pop-culture, and just basically a group of friends who are getting together doing ridiculous shows."\nJunior Gene Westbrook said the script writing is an ensemble approach. Westbrook auditioned two years ago because he had been in comedy groups before, and as the acting spokesman for the troupe, he picks up on the organizational tasks and helps run the show.\nJunior Nathan Rhinehart plays many major roles in the shows and does not do much of the writing, though he has written before. \n"Anyone can write and submit a script, and then the troupe decides what they want to perform," said Treasure.\n"Boy in the Bubble" is not the only comedy troupe in Bloomington.\n"'Full-Frontal' is an improv comedy group, and we are more like 'Kids in the Hall' and do not perform on the spur of the moment," said Rhinehart. \nRhinehart has been in the troupe for two and a half years. He auditioned with a good friend and was able to make the cut.\n"Boy in the Bubble" performs everywhere -- from road trips to on-campus shows. \n"Wherever we can find a place we'll perform, and every show we do is a new script," Rhinehart said. "We have gone to Purdue, and now we are going to be performing at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, starting after we tour the dorms performing shows for the freshmen."\nPractices are held later at night when classes are not in session, and there are a lot of cast members to fall back on if some cannot make particular shows. Rehearsals are usually Mondays through Wednesdays, unless there is a Saturday show, causing them to practice on Thursdays as well from 10 p.m. to whenever they can call it a night.\nStarting last week, "Boy in the Bubble" kicked off their new hilarious season at Read Center. From there they will continue touring the dorms, and on September 14th, they will start performing at the Bloomington Playwrights Project.