Rehearsal. Warm up. Perform. Pack. Travel. Repeat.

This is the daily schedule of professional actors on the road, and for three weeks, five ISU student actors will get the opportunity to see what it is like working in the professional acting world.

“Glengarry Glen Ross,” written by David Mamet and directed by Patrick Gouran, associate professor of music, will be performed at the Maintenance Shop this week and will then be traveling to Des Moines to Vaudeville Mews, 212 4th St., for two more weeks of performance.

“I want the students to realize that [traveling] is not always glamorous,” Gouran says. “You have to pack up the set each evening so the stage is ready for the next show. It isn’t Fisher [Theater], where after the show, the actors can just leave to get a drink.”

However, traveling is not the only part of this professional acting experience. The cast of “Glengarry Glen Ross” also includes two professional actors — Robin Stone, assistant professor of music, and James Serpento, ISU alumnus and a professional actor from Des Moines.

“It is a great opportunity to be able to work on this with the faculty that are involved and with James,” says William Mort, junior in performing arts, who portrays Baylen in the play. “It is amazing to watch their professionalism on stage. And it’s amazing to watch James fully become his character the entire time and once rehearsal is done, boom — he is back to being James Serpento.”

The idea for producing and directing “Glengarry Glen Ross” came to Gouran last year during his role of Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol.”

“I was in the dressing room of ‘Christmas Carol,’ and I realized that we had a talent pool, and we needed to utilize them before they were gone,” Gouran says. “As college students, by their third or fourth year, they are just beginning to hit their peak, and then they leave. The idea for David Mamet’s play didn’t come to me right away, but it was soon after.”

Gouran says he knew Mamet’s play of “Glengarry Glen Ross” was going to be tough, but with the solid pool of talent he had to work with, he knew that the show would be a success.

Serpento became involved with the show after a request from Gouran to join the cast.

“I learned lots of great things from [Gouran],” Serpento says. “We have built up a strong relationship that has gone both ways. I worked with him when I went to ISU, and he has worked with me, as I have directed him in a couple of independent films. But I think now we are able to relate to each other more as peers than as mentor and student.”

With an all-male cast, “Glengarry Glen Ross” tells the story of sly real-estate men selling swampland to customers who believe they are buying quality land.

“It’s all men interacting with men, using the language of men,” Mort says. “It shows how people will react when others are put on the line and put to the test.”

The play is full of mature language and content, complete with racial slurs, but is exactly the way the characters would talk if they were real, Gouran says.

Serpento says coming back to work with students does not feel any different than working with professional actors.

“I always learn something new from other actors,” he says, “and this is no different.”

Gouran says he hopes his students will notice the high standards professional actors uphold and look at Stone and Serpento as role models.

“The two professionals have a variety of approaches they use to find layers in their characters and therefore give the student actors a lot to react to,” Gouran says. “But I think our student actors match them in terms of quality, and it is amazing to see how far they have all come in five weeks. I love the process in which I see growth.”

What: “Glengarry Glen Ross”

Where: M-Shop

When: 7:30 p.m., Thursday—Saturday2 p.m. Sunday

Cost: $5.50 students, $11 public

Where: Vaudeville Mews,212 4th St. Des Moines

When: 7 p.m., April 29-May 1, May 7-83 p.m. May 2

Cost: $15