Once the academic day is finished, many college students are on the prowl for one of two things: food, and/or something fun to do. While I agree that fun activities are needed to relieve the stresses that are produced by the everyday academic struggle, I also believe that we as college students have the duty to, on occasion, ponder some of the more difficult issues that will one day be passed off to our generation. The trouble is getting college students interested in these difficult subjects. One solution that seemed to have a great impact was presenting a difficult subject in the form of live theater.

The second show that was produced by the Stockton College Performing Arts Center was one named Hello Herman. I had the great honor of being casted in the show as three different supporting roles. I must say that being involved in this show was definitely one of the greatest experiences of my first semester here at Stockton. I made so many friends and had honestly the best time working to perform a show that truly is difficult in its subject matter. The whole premise of the show is to show the issue of violence amongst the youth of America, and to show the possible motives that would drive a teenager to use violence to express their anger. The plot follows Herman Howards, a sixteen year old from fictional Broom, Iowa, as he carries out a Columbine-style shooting of his high school. The one major difference is the magnitude of the shooting. Howards shot 43 students, 2 teachers, and 1 police officer, making this shooting the worst mass school shooting in American history. The play then goes into an interview style as Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Lax Morales, attempts to unravel the teens incredibly twisted mind. Through the use of flashbacks, the audience learns of Herman’s past, as well as Lax’s back story which eerily parallel that of Herman. There are also various subplots, such as the romantic plot between Lax, and news reporter Sheila Duval. While all these elements are unfolding, the audience still has to think about an element introduced fairly early in the show of if Herman will be executed, in addition to if the execution will be televised.

Through the course of the play, the audience learns that Herman’s father cheated on his mother, and left when he was eight. It is also revealed that Herman’s younger sister, Julia, was hit by a car, and died three days later in the hospital. The cause of Julia’s death could also be attributed to the fact that their mother, Gail Howards, was working and too busy to rush home right away and care for her daughter. Herman was the only one home at the time, and could not deal with the situation correctly, which seemed to be haunting him in his later years. Herman’s inability to correctly mourn the loss of sister may have also contributed to his insanity and facilitated his decision to do what he did.

In the end, Herman is executed on television, and the audience is left with this awful pit in their stomachs. When asked if they enjoyed the show, many of the audience members replied with that while they did not enjoy the subject matter, they did thoroughly enjoy the acting, which pleases me greatly. Despite being proud of a great production, I am also thrilled that the show was able to bring a very real issue in our society to the forefront of our students’ minds. If anything it got people talking, which is a great start, to hopefully what will be a definite solution to this enormous issue.

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.

On September 7th, Stockton College participated in the Annual Day of Service. It is said that the Day of Service has always taken place on campus in the years past, but this year was the first year that Stockton has gone completely off campus for the project. The theme this year was Do AC, which included a multitude of different projects dispersed throughout the city to benefit the overall community. Having participated in a wide variety of service projects in high school I had a pretty good image for what I was about to undertake, yet in reality the day took a turn that I would never had expected in my wildest dreams.

Upon my arrival to the campus center event room, all the participants were split into different groups which would carry out a different service project. Due to my incredibly indecisive nature I milled about for some time and, as only the ever present irony of life would have it, I returned to the project at which I went to first, but of course the project was full. The project I ended up with was voter registration, which at first I had the notion that the opportunity to sit at a table and fill out some papers would be a somewhat enjoyable one. If anything, I had foolishly believed the task would be easy, and my lazy nature would be able to commandeer the forefront of my mind. I could not have been more wrong.

The reality of the task assigned to me was the grueling process of trudging up and down the boardwalk, in addition to the sullen feeling of blunt rejection and lewd comments that seemed to be, in simple terms, unnecessary. The occasional smile and polite response would be an uplifting gust of wind that would undoubtedly recede, allowing my spirits to sink yet again. After a couple of hours of this same process repeating over and over again, I found my mind begin to stray from the task at hand, and eventually I found myself contemplating the current issues and universal truths of life. Returning to our base camp I discovered that my comrades had the same minuscule amount of success.

After the Day of Service was complete, I had definitely learned a thing or two. First, I learned that people on vacation would have nothing to do with the confusing world of politics, or any other task they deem unworthy of their time. I also learned that there are many jobs throughout the world that have a minimal amount of positive response, and feel as if their work is fruitless, yet it is these people and these jobs that actually carry a great amount of significance in the terms of actual change in our society. If anything I will most definitely have a greater amount of respect for those individuals who are in any sort of service position.