Wharton Follies Riffs on the Bard MBA Students Sing and Dance in 'A Midsemester Night's Dream'
Whether it be professors, competing business schools or second-year students, no one escapes the parodies of the annual MBA musical cabaret, Wharton Follies. This year’s production, “A Midsemester Night’s Dream: A Walk in the Wissahickon Woods,” played three nights to full houses in Annenberg’s Zellerbach Theater.
Overall, the production seemed to poke the most fun at Graduate Division Vice Dean Anjani Jain, who was featured in video skits playing on the large screens in the theater. BPUB, the required class of Business and Public Policy, got its come-uppance in a parody of the Amy Winehouse hit, “Rehab,” while the decisions and assessments of the Myers-Briggs career assessment earned ribbing in “The Buy Side,” a take-off on The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.”
There also was plenty of student self-deprecation. Skits and videos mocked aspects of Wharton courtship. One male student, applying what he had learned in his Strategic Analysis class, figured out which date would be better for his future, while in another sketch, a Romeo and Juliet pair tried to pursue a romance doomed by their association with different cohorts.
Favorite professors were treated a little more kindly, but the admissions office got its jabs with a take on the Home Box Office show, “Entourage.” In this skit, Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid Thomas Caleel became devious agent Ari Gold, doing anything to keep a handsome Vinnie Chase character from going to another b-school, even granting admission to Vinnie’s underqualified brother and friends.
