'As Wharton Turns' pokes fun at B-school

The Wharton Follies 18th Annual show, As Wharton Turns (The Young and the Jobless), kicked off its opening night with all the drama of a soap opera and all the issues that face Wharton graduate students today. The more than 200 member student staff poked harmless fun at everything from students to faculty at the "number one B-school in the world." The two and a half hour long musical depicted life for the typical Whartonite and began with the cast explaining how they got in to Wharton. It lead into the Pocono's "touchy-feely" retreat where they bonded with their class and formed "learning teams" that they would work with for their first year. Even the popular children's favorite, the purple dinosaur named "Barney" made a surprise appearance to help spread love among the first year Wharton students. Actors and actresses also joked about complex number calculations. The character "Belch" proved you did not have to know anything but the "33" on Rolling Rock cans to number crunch and do well in group proposals. Wharton freshman Courtney Tuttle explained the retreat. "The camp was just like that," she said, "It was all touchy-feely and get together. And the work groups were like that with people working together or just one person doing it all." Cast members' humor also targeting the difficulties in registering for classes. Performers were helpless against their evil foe PARIS, the Penn Automatic Registration Information System. And their faculty advisor was more interested in partying on "Jain's World" than helping the freshmen along. The story line even included a little romance that blossomed throughout the first year and faded with the annual "Walnut Walk" that ends the first year. The second half of the play depicted the second year at Wharton. The older and wiser students returned to school to greet old friends and tell about their summer internships. Job interview anxiety soon replaced class stress as the older and wiser crowd tried to schmooze their way into few positions. Although their mock interview teams ran into turbulence on the job hunt, Whartonites seemed to be more on the ball at actual interviews. This year's surprise guest wowed the crowd as the performers in the mock class solved all their problems and graduated to great jobs. The first performance went off without any major problems, although sometimes the fifteen person orchestra overwhelmed the singers. The choreography was fantastic and the songs were sung to well-known tunes like Madonna's "Like a Prayer." According to second year Wharton graduate student Suzanne Dequer, the audience was comprised mainly of Wharton students and professors. "Alumnae tend to go to the New York show," she explained. Although the show was humorous to most, many of the jokes were aimed at a particular audience and were difficult for non-Whartonites to understand. Students, like Wharton freshman Ethan Eisner, raved about the show, even though it poked fun at students like himself. "Satire is good," he said, "It's important to laugh at yourself." The Wharton Follies is an entirely student run production with one show a year that gives six productions in Philadelphia and one in New York.