From left: Engineering students Eric Wherley and David Sklenar set up special effects for Inside the Box

It seems an improbable pairing — drama students and first-year engineering students — but together they’re working to bring a series of one-act plays to life in the University of Virginia’s Helms Theatre in an intriguing interdisciplinary activity.

Called “Inside the Box,” the collaborative project is in its fourth year of combining the creativity of writers, directors and actors with the inventiveness of young engineers.

Benjamin W. Kidd (’10), a graduate student in electrical engineering, first proposed the idea to Paxton Marshall, associate dean of undergraduate programs in the Engineering School, when Kidd signed on as a teaching assistant.

“I was taking or had taken some classes in theatrical lighting with drama professor Lee Kennedy and, as an electrical engineer, initially thought that we could build something around lighting,” says Kidd. “But I thought that would be too constrained, while special effects permit more opportunities.”

Kidd and Marshall contacted the drama department and laid out their plan.

Playwrights from drama professor Doug Grissom’s class are paired with a director from drama professor Robert Chapel’s directing and stagemanagement class and teams of students from the “Introduction to Engineering” class. The playwrights are given a list of five special effects in an assignment that requires them to write a play that includes four of the effects. Later, the directors must add the remaining effect. Based on the specifications from the playwrights and directors, the engineering students design and build the effects.

Jessica Tabacca (SE ’11) confesses that she hadn’t expected to be spending part of her first semester as an engineering student working in the theater.

“I think it was a good surprise, though, because we all had a lot of fun getting to work with our playwrights, directors and actors,” says Tabacca. “It was exciting to watch all our hard work come together in one final and exciting project.”

The engineers learn one other thing theater people already know: Performing in front of a live audience is as daunting as it is rewarding.

Among the interesting dynamics that Marshall has seen as Inside the Box has evolved is the relationship between the first-year engineers and the drama students who are generally in their third or fourth years.

“The engineering students have just arrived, and they are awed by the upper-class drama students, who seem so extroverted and confident,” he says. “But in working together for a common end, they see the human side of the drama students: that they are uncertain and groping towards an optimal solution just like the engineers. The engineers see that their contribution is vital to the success of the plays, and this gives them both confidence and a sense of responsibility to the team effort.

“At the end,” Marshall continues, “they have a great sense of accomplishment and pride in their work.”