Imagine a future in which your professional life is a gray void of conformity and a love life means certain death.

This is the story Brock Ward, senior in College Scholars, tells through his play “Nothing Personal.”

“With this play I wanted to tackle two themes I saw going on with classmates. One was a sacrifice of passion for safety,” Ward explained. “You give up these dreams you have, all these things you’re passionate about, for a life that you are fully aware that you won’t enjoy very much, but you appreciate the safety factor of it.”

Sacrifice of personal identity and its consequences are a main theme in Ward’s production, in which he also stars. The second aspect of this sacrifice comes in the characters’ personal relationships.

“I also saw a very large fear of love going on where a lot of classmates were afraid of affection that they were feeling,” Ward said. “They weren’t afraid of other people loving them; they were afraid of themselves feeling love.”

Ward’s costar Rachel Finney, senior in English, elaborated on the theme of the risk taken with love.

“The play reflects most people’s fear of loving and being loved by taking it to the extreme,” Finney said. “It comments on the complexities of all types of love from relationships to friendships to family.”

Ward explained how each of the main conflicts center around a fear of being hurt, whether professionally in a harsh corporate world or romantically by an unrequited love.

Although “Nothing Personal” touches on heavy subject matter, Ward’s ability to communicate through dark humor allows the play to take on a more light-hearted feel. Ward said the funniest things can also be the most dire and serious.

David Ratliff, house manager at Clarence Brown Theatre and director of “Nothing Personal,” commended Ward for his “puny” style of writing.

“It’s light-hearted but dealing with difficult subject matter, but that’s really the way to have the audience access it instead of beating them over the heads with drama,” Ratliff said. “You present it in a clever way so it’s easier to swallow.”

Through his play, Ward hopes to vocalize his peers’ unacknowledged concerns about their futures, a worry that’s shared by many but vocalized by few.

“He has a very interesting way of being able to say things in his plays that I have felt or thought but couldn’t exactly put into words,” Ratliff said. “He’s expressed it exactly the way that makes sense.”

By encouraging students to face their fears, Ward hopes he may encourage a reevaluation of priorities as they prepare to enter into the next stage in their lives. In the end, Ward wants the audience to leave with an increased awareness of individual potential and a desire to do something great with it.

“In this play, people are expected to behave a certain way and when two of the characters end up going against that flow … you really see what happens to them and what it means for them in a society that’s telling them they’re doing something wrong,” Ratliff said. “It’s not set in the distant future. It’s set in this generation’s future, so this is where we might be headed. The question is what can we do now to change that?”

“Nothing Personal” premieres Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Carousel Theater. Admission is free.