WRITTEN BY BRITTANY GARRETT, STAFF REPORTER

After the director announced, “End scene,” Jordan Hall 141 flooded with previously bottled-up laughter from the actors auditioning to be this year’s Improvfessionals group at Butler University.

Improvfessionals is a fairly new comedy group on campus focusing its main inspiration from the formerly-Drew Carey-hosted show “Whose Line is It, Anyway?”

The group started up last year, but because many members were seniors, founder Chris Antolin was the only current member at the start of the school year.

Antolin, a sophomore engineering major, got into comedy and acting in high school. He relates his major and his unlikely hobby of improv acting by the common theme of creativity.

“They really aren’t that different,” Antolin said. “Imagination and creativity are needed in engineering and creating, as well as entertaining and making people laugh.”

The purpose of Improvfessionals is purely entertainment.

Though last year’s group was confined to entertaining themselves with private practices, Antolin said this year he has ambitions for public performances.

“I definitely want to start off small, but eventually the goal is to make it into Clowes  (Memorial Hall) to put on our shows,” Antolin said.

Improvfessionals’ faculty supervisor Rob Miller and Antolin worked with the auditioning students by participating in a variety of games and exercises before providing input and advice.

Miller said improv relates to life in general and how everyone should go about conducting themselves.

“You need to accept what people are giving you,” Miller said. “You should never walk in thinking you’ll say the wrong thing. Confidence in who you are is important.”

Antolin looked back on auditions with a sense of fondness toward the performances he saw.

“It wasn’t a very big group but it was surprising how entertaining it was,” Antolin said.

Freshman theatre major Sonia Goldberg auditioned for the group, but she said she did not even know what to expect.

“My friend just told me to come along, so I did,” Goldberg said.
“And I just went with what everyone else was doing. I have never really done improv work before, but I would love to try.”

Antolin said more individuals expressed interest than who had showed up to audition. Because of this, a second audition date will be determined.