Casey Carle started blowing bubbles in the 1980s and has blown them into a career.

Carle is part of Bubble Time, a vaudeville-like performance featuring soap bubbles.

He said he and other performers are known as bubble artists.

They will perform at 7 p.m. Friday in the Dvorak Concert Hall in the Doudna Fine Arts Center. Tickets will cost $12, which also includes a cookout from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Carle said that soap bubble entertainment has grown quite a bit since he started. He said when he started doing bubble shows there were maybe six bubble performers in the world.

“We discovered, not only is it a great niche for our particular kind of comedy style, but bubbles have a great appeal for all ages,” Carle said.

Carle said Bubble Time takes people past what they would expect for a show featuring soap bubbles.

“It’s certainly thinking outside the bubble, if I may say” Carle said.

Carle said he started out as a solo artist before getting together with Doug Rougeux in 1990. Rougeaux had his own solo soap bubble act at the time. They collaborated a show with a story line with comedy, action, conflict and a resolution.

“So we combined our bubbling skills with our acting skills,” Carle said. “We both have theater backgrounds and degrees and put it together with our bubbling skills to make something that is more than a bubble show, more than a story, and it’s more than a comedy. It’s all of it together; it’s a fusion.”

Carle also said they both have experience working as clowns for Ringling Brothers Circus.

“It is definitely circusy and it has energy in its presentational style. It falls into the category of being a high energy variety act,” Carle said.

He said while there are many bubble acts, there are none that are a two-man comedy show like theirs.

Carle said their performance is non-verbal and the story is told through action, slap stick, interaction with the audience and music.

He said he also has Bubble Mania, which are solo performances done in the style of a juggler or magician, and he has hired on performers so that he can cover a greater geographic area.

Marcus Smith can be reached at 581-2812 or masmith6@eiu.edu.