Where theater meets game design
When professors Jessie Darrell-Jarbadan (Theatre Arts) and Ezra Cove (Becker School of Design and Technology) compared notes on costume construction, they realized theatrical and game character design rely on strikingly similar processes. The result is Interactive Theater, a collaborative course that builds toward an immersive performance where audience members move freely through Clark’s Little Center, completing quests and shaping their own version of the story.
In the run-up to the production, Waiting for Obols, students split their time between costume design, using digital cloth-simulation software to prototype garments before sewing them, and 3D-modeled props and set pieces brought to life with 3D printers. “It’s about exploring and seeing how we all come together for the same goal,” says Professor Terrasa Ulm, who wrote the original script. With no traditional stage or seating, no two audience members will see the same show twice.
