The April 27 tornado claimed 53 lives, including six University of Alabama students, and caused widespread devastation across Tuscaloosa. Everyone who it touched has coped in different ways, but one UA professor is asking his students to do so by writing plays.

“Inside the Tornado” is a collection of original short plays, dances and musical compositions produced jointly by the University of Alabama and Shelton State Community College. Its aim is to bring the community together in remembrance of those affected by that storm, said Steve Burch, UA associate professor of theater history and playwright instructor.

Burch worked alongside Michael Carr, a theater instructor at Shelton State, to bring the production together. The duo was already planning to collaborate, and the events of April 27 gave Burch the opportunity to create a unique assignment that would allow powerful stories to be told.

“Ultimately, I think the way we honor things is through memory, bearing witness,” he said.

Burch said seeing The Crimson White’s front page photograph commemorating the six-month anniversary of the storm inspired the assignment. Burch presented his students with the photograph as inspiration and asked them to write a 10-minute play of any style in two weeks.

“There was nothing that was off limits,” Burch said. “They could choose to approach it in any way, whether it be autobiographical or completely made up.”

Of the 21 students in Burch’s playwright class, nine plays were chosen to be a part of the production.

Graduate students John Nara and Peyton Conley are two of those chosen.

Nara wasn’t in Tuscaloosa at the time of the tornadoes and was unsure of how to approach such a sensitive topic. He said his play, “The Lesson,” was inspired by his own feelings upon receiving this assignment, and the character in Nara’s play mirrors the situation he encountered.

In his work, the character was bothered by hearing other tornado plays being read in class, and didn’t feel worthy to address the topic.

“I wasn’t scheduled to turn in my play until the second week, so I got to hear a weeks worth of plays,” Nara said. “Some people in the class had written really heartwarming and endearing things because they had experienced it. One of the girls in my class said, ‘If you weren’t there, then you just don’t know.’”

The girl’s words caused Nara to think in depth about the angle he would take with his play, which evolved into the reflection his production became.

“April,” Conley’s play, addressed a different aspect of the tornado experience — exploitation.

Conley said he saw posts on Facebook shortly after the tornado warning people to beware of others trying to exploit Tuscaloosa’s tragedy. This idea stayed with him and after seeing the photograph Burch gave to the class, Conley said he thought about the possibility of the photo being staged.

Photos have the ability to evoke real emotion he said and he wanted to explore whether believing in something that isn’t real was good or bad. Is it good to give people hope even though the underlying motive may be to make money? If the staged content was doing its job of uplifting people, does it matter?

“The question is, if you were one of the people who saw that picture and it deeply affected you, does that make your feeling any less legitimate because the picture is fake?” Conley said. “I wanted to question that with my piece, to get people thinking.”

Burch said he thinks there are two things that theater can do better than any other profession: create a community and empathy by giving people the opportunity to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

“If there is any element that separates us from any other species, I think it’s empathy,” Burch said. “It is empathy that allows us to extend a helping hand and to not be so judgmental of other human beings.”

“Inside the Tornado” is intended to help the healing process for the community, Burch said.

The production is free to attend, but the producers would like for those in attendance to make a $5 donation. All of the money donated will be given to Tuscaloosa’s Red Cross. Shows will be held on May 3 and 4 at 7:30 p.m., and May 5 at 2 p.m. at Shelton State Community College in the Bean-Brown Theater.