by Maria Thomas and Jack Melanson,  Asst. News Editor and Staff Writer

As Scatterbomb prepares for a new round of laughs, it’s first necessary for them to fill some gaps.

Seniors like Kevin Donald are grabbing their diplomas and entering the workforce, leaving room for new members to hit the Scatterbomb stage. Because of this, the group held open auditions on Monday, April 19.

Sophomore Aedan Roney, who has been on the team for two years, noted the high turnout of this year’s spring audition.

“There are usually fewer people at the spring auditions and this one had a pretty decent size,” he said. “It was a much more competitive group than other years.”

One possible reason why this spring’s audition group brought a higher level of competition could be the improv workshop Scatterbomb hosted weeks prior to the event. This was the first year that Scatterbomb began doing improv workshops, and according to Jenn Buetti, the practice yielded great results.

Buetti said, “What played into having a bigger turnout this year was that we had those two workshops before. We saw similar faces from the workshops come to the auditions. It was Aedan Roney’s idea, and I didn’t know how ti was going to turn out, but it really brought a bigger interest to audition, so I think we’ll continue that in the future.”

Following the most recent audition, the team has chosen their two newest members. Roney discussed how the team tries not to go into judging auditions with a certain number of open slots in mind.

“We try not to set numbers in mind just because we want to be open to the students who show up and not block ourselves or anybody else off from a potential spot on the team, but knowing we have auditions in the fall as well we try not to take too many or too little people on at any particular audition,” he said.

Another challenge faced by Scatterbombers is saying goodbye to Senior Kevin Donald, who has been lighting up the stage for four years.

Donald said, “I had never done improv until I came to Manhattan College. Then I got into scatterbomb my first month of college, so this is my fourth year doing improv.”

From the very beginning of his improv career at MC, Donald has appreciated the lessons he’s learned on the team. He wants future improvers to know that Scatterbomb is an accepting community.

I think its important for two reasons. It’s about having fun, it shows that we’re not very serious. I think that theres a little bit of a stigma that we’re a cult or at least a clique, i want people to know that were happy to do this with them and that were happy to show them what we do,” he said.

Roney believes the Scatterbomb team is vital to Manhattan College for a very specific reason.

“I think scatterbomb is a really important part of the manhattan college campus because we’re a consistent activity that students can go out and do on a friday night. Even if they want to go out they can do this first. We give students a place to come together and laugh with their friends and have a good time and relax from whatever the week may have brought to them,” Roney said.

Jenn Bueti looks forward to future performances and practices with the new 2019-2020 roster of Scatterbombers.

“We have a diverse team. We’re all funny but in our own specific ways. We’re all going to be very funny together and we’re all gonna sing kumbaya at the end of the day. That’s all I can hope for.” said Buetti.

Come to the final Scatterbomb show of the year, “Scatterprom”, to witness the magic of improv and say goodbye to Kevin Donald.