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Spontaneous Combustion was founded by former Brown College sophomore Rod Sanders, who left Rice for personal reasons last semester. In the fall of 1995, Sanders held auditions for improv actors and actresses. Once assembled, this group worked to fulfill Sanders' vision of improv comedy at Rice inspired by his experience working in a professional improvisational troupe in his hometown. The troupe premiered to the Rice community with this fall's open rehearsal.

Their promising future faltered shortly thereafter when the troupe lost its leader. According to Lovett College senior Scott Ruthfield, "We floundered a lot without Rod, but now we're doing much better. ... He thought we were good enough, so we kept on going." The group overcame minor administrative problems to eventually become regular performers at Sammy's Late Nite.

A typical Spontaneous Combustion performance is similar to the Comedy Central series "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Two teams compete for points in various games. However, their goal is not cash, but entertaining their audience.

The performances are extremely dependent on that audience -- not only for scoring, but also for suggestions within the games.

For example, in the game "Cheese Party," three troupe members solicited character attributes from the audience, such as a profession, song or phobia. A host, played by another member, acted as a "straight man" who had to guess the attributes based on his team members' performances. In the Sammy's performance, one player, Brown junior Ahmad Hernandez, had to feign fear of bananas -- at one point he screamed and ran away upon seeing an imaginary bowl of fruit.

One of Spontaneous Combus-tion's other games is a version of the well-known "rumor game." In this version, the troupe sends three members out of earshot, and the audience supplies a remaining player with a murder location, occupation and weapon.

This information must be passed along from the original player to the other three in a chain, without any verbal cues. In the end, the players are asked for their interpretations.

For example, in one performance, an original player's sumo wrestler became a second member's football player. Somehow, the third player misinterpreted the second player's actions for a sumo wrestler, completing the chain.

While overall their performances have been enjoyable, the group has had its difficulties. Typically these problems are functions of the group's relatively short time together -- they added four members this semester. "We're a young group -- that can always cause trouble, but people have been really willing to try and work together and listen to everyone else," Ruthfield said.

Judging from their vast improvement from the open rehearsal to their most recent performance in Sammy's, the longer the troupe stays together, the stronger the chemistry between the performers grows. Their comfort and ease in front of and interacting with the audience has also increased with time.

Spontaneous Combustion exists both as an exciting outlet for theater and comedy enthusiasts and as an example of the fullfillment of a vision.

Despite Sander's absence, the troupe continues to fulfill his vision of supplying Rice with this new form of entertainment, showing strong student initiative and perseverence.

The troupe has an upcoming performance during Owl Weekend.

However, they do not plan to stop there. According to Lovett junior Rayo Kumana, the group's approach to the future is: "Today the CoffeeHouse, tomorrow the world."

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the April 18, 1997 issue.