With the upcoming theater production of They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! just around the corner, we asked guest artist Rob Witmer some questions about his work and creative process as a sound designer.
What we learned is that Rob Witmer was originally a musician. He played instruments throughout high school and college, and was playing in bands until someone suggested theater and offered him a role as a sound designer. This opportunity eventually led to him pursuing sound design.
This upcoming production won’t be Witmer’s first time as a sound designer at Whitman College’s Harper Joy Theatre, but his fourth. One notable experience was Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (2016), where he devised original music for the production. The Revolutionists (2021) was Witmer’s most recent sound design work at Whitman. After recalling this production, Witmer says that “I loved working with all the students. Working with the students was great. That’s one of the reasons why I came back.”
When asked what his creative process was for They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!, Witmer describes his work and creative process as being “a little more theoretical in the beginning.” His creative process has mostly “been listening to a lot of the music. The play is sort of set in Italy and it was written in 1974, so it’s got this kind of farce… we’re kinda going for sort of a- almost like a sitcom, television, very wacky kind of, there’s a lot of just crazy stuff that happens in this play so I wanted music from Italian movies and TV shows from the 70s and trying to find music that’ll capture the mood of the play.” His aim is to have music that will help the audience understand the chaotic, crazy nature of the story despite the fact that the majority of the play takes place in an apartment.
As for challenges that Witmer faced when creating his sound designs, there are certain parts of the play where there are people yelling outside of the apartment. “All of those sounds have to play back over the speaker. It has to be sounds around the set, sort of, and we don’t actually see them, so that would be the challenge. Being able to capture those sounds and conversations outside of the apartment while we’re only seeing what’s going on in the apartment… yeah, that would be the challenge.”
When asked what his favorite part of the design for this production is, here is what Witmer had to say: “Well I think there are going to be a lot of really funny moments where there are chase scenes, the women in the play are trying to hide, and then they’re pretending not to steal all this stuff… I look forward to finding music to fit that kind of perfectly” says Witmer when discussing potentially exciting parts of the design for They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! In particular, finding what “underscores the humor of that” type of funny scenes by emphasizing it with the music is what he foresees to be a favorite part of his creative process.
Tickets to They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! are now available! The show runs September 29 – October 1 at 8 pm, and October 1 & 2 at 2 pm.