My one regret in high school was my lack of involvement during the first three years on my high school career. After my mother used her superior powers of persuasion, in my senior year I joined our schools Drama Club. This would turn out to be the best decision I would make in my high school years. Without rambling on into a short dissertation about how the Drama Club changed my life, it can simply be stated that this club became my life, and its members, my family. Upon my arrival at Stockton, I sought out the theatre program here in an attempt to continue to experience all the wonder a theatre family creates. In short, I have been heavily involved with Stockton Theatre Club, and I am honestly having the time of my life participating in all our events.

The first show of the semester that Stockton’s Performing Arts Center put on was The Profession. The show was student directed by Dan Cerullo, a senior who is scheduled to graduate this December. The cast of the show was what you could consider to be a fairly small cast, featuring only three characters. The stage crew was only slightly larger, with a crew size of four people to assist in the transitions from scene to scene. While the cast was set way back in the begging of September, the crew, however, was only solidified when I offered to join as the fourth and final crew member a mere week before opening day.

The Profession is an absurdest, dark comedy, which physically engages the audience in an interactive manner. The absurdest aspect of the show allows for the audience to draw their own conclusions as to what it is the Profession itself really is, in addition to the intended ambiguity of the ending which always leaves the audience with more questions than they arrived with. For some, not having a clear-cut ending becomes a troublesome matter, yet in my opinion the fact that the play allows for great variation in translation, is one of the highlights to the genius of the playwright, Walter Wykes.
The plot follows Eugene, played by Jeremy Rotolo, as he tried to make sense of his world which seems to be crumbling down upon itself. Eugene has just joined the profession, yet he can tell that something is amiss when it comes to classmate Rosetta, played by Taylor Cawley, and instructor Schafer, played by Ryan Gorman. Eugene begins to question the Profession, and as he does, the fabricated world that the Profession creates begins to reveal itself to him. Through it all, Eugene’s wife Ibid, also played by Taylor Cawley, is there to ease his heart and steady his mind. The final act of the play features Eugene’s desertion of the Profession, which culminates in a mad scrambling of characters, unveiling of lies, plot twists in every direction, which undoubtedly render the audience bewildered and wanting more.

I must say that the show was wonderfully directed by Dan Cerullo and his cast really did a stand-up job on every night’s performance. I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of this phenomenal production and experience what it is like to be a part of a college level performance.