By Chris Estrada

As she took the stage in Blackman Auditorium, Katie Rubin had a warning for her audience. “This is definitely an R-rated show, so if you’re a little squeamish, you might want to leave now,” she said. No one obliged. With that, the California-based comedic writer and performer turned into seven different characters during “Insides OUT!,” her original one-woman performance. Rubin’s show was the kickoff of the Insitute on Urban Health Research’s effort to combat substance abuse and alcohol issues among students. The Institute on Urban Health Research used the event to announce the attainment of two three-year federal grants. One is worth $1.5 million and funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, and the other is worth $943,792 and funded by the National Insitute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. The performance had Rubin morphing into different “archetypes” of herself that portrayed her decisions with addiction through college and her first years in the real world. A little girl character served as the narrator and as a guide to the rest, ranging from Rubin herself to her more bizarre inner sides – a relentless “perfect monster,” the boy-crazy airhead “Sylvia,” the cocky drug addict “Hank”, an assertive poet and a woman full of wisdom. Student audience members said they thought the show was a surprising success. “I first saw the advertisement on the NU website, and I didn’t think much of it,” said Rachel Zimmerman, a freshman medical laboratory science major. “Then I came here and it was kind of like a different experience … I’m more interested in what she had to say and I hope to see the next show that’s coming here.” Since Rubin portrayed a variety of different characters, students said they found it easy to relate to at least one of them. “It was something that anyone could relate to, because of the different aspects,” said Katrina Almeida, a freshman health sciences major who said she heard about the show from a professor. “I thought the show was amazing.” Hortensia Amaro, director of the institute, said the substance abuse and mental health grant will “focus on helping to improve services at the health center” in order to help Northeastern students who develop a substance abuse problem upon entering college. “Some of these [students] are away for the first time, and they’re new to drinking,” Amaro said. “It’s becoming part of the college environment.