A piano sits onstage with a spotlight shining overhead.

Jared Gaxiola enters from stage left, sits down, introduces himself as Artie Shaughnessy and so begins our journey into, “The House of Blue Leaves.”

The two-act play is about a struggling New York City zookeeper with aspirations of making it in show business and how his life implodes the day the Pope visits New York City in October of 1965.

“It’s a different kind of play indeed,” Jerry Prell, the “House of Blue Leaves” director said. “It’s tragic comedy and balancing those elements of comedy and tragedy, I think the cast did a really a great job of that.”

The ensemble cast made up entirely of students, wrapped up their five-show run Sunday evening in the Campus Theatre.

One of the standout performances was by third-year drama student John Webb in his first leading role.

Webb plays the troubled son of Artie Shaughnessy, Ronnie who is awol from the United States Army.

“I’m a more reserved person usually and this character is extremely out there,” Webb said, “especially since this a farce, all the characters have to be huge and letting myself be huge and go over the top with my mannerisms and everything is probably the hardest challenge for me personally.”

Webb was so committed to his role that he even sacrificed his normally long locks for a traditional military haircut.

“I used to get my hair cut this short every summer when I was kid, I stopped when I was around 10,” Webb said. “It was definitely very weird to going back to having very short hair after such long hair for a very long time.”

Tamara Glaser, a professional actress and singer, was in attendance during Sunday’s show and had this to say about the El Camino production.

“I was extremely impressed. Toward the end of the production I was flashing back to when I saw the show on Broadway and I think it was comparable to that in many ways,” Glaser said.