Jenna Campbell talks Polaroid Stories with Jackson Williams, the Sound Designer for the show.

Jenna Campbell: What inspired you to go into sound design?

Jackson Williams: When I was in high school, my freshman year, I really wanted to be in the show so I was in Willy Wonka, and at the end of that semester, at the end of the spring, our technical director said “hey, our sound person, stage manager, and lighting person are all graduating, is anyone interested in trying any of these?”

And I said, “I don’t know what any of those are, but if you teach me or show me some of it, I can see if I want to do any of them.” So there was a group of us that he demoed all of the positions to over the course of a week, and sound was the only where I was like, “I wanna do this.”

JC: And after that?

JW: And after that I was the sound person for every single show, and it wasn’t until my junior year that I was talking about applying to schools and [the technical director] asked if I was applying to any of them for sound, and I said, “that’s not a real thing” And he said, “no you can actually do that as a job.” And then he gave me a bunch of different paperwork and websites to look up.

JC: How do you begin your process?

JW: Reading the script seventy-five times [Laughs]. No, I usually read it at least three times before I start actually going through it. First, I read it just to read it. Then I read it to comprehend everything and then that third time is when I finally start making notes of all of the different sound effects and all of the different ideas I have. Then from there, it’s having a conversation with the director about what they want and combining my thoughts with their thoughts along with what’s already in the script, and then from there we start working.

JC: When did you first read this play, and what did you think?

JW: I first read it March, April, sometime last spring. It was interesting but I didn’t understand any of it at the time because there is just so much happening. [Laughs] But once I read it two or three more times, it started to get a lot easier to envision and actually understand what was going on.

JC: What is your favorite line from the play?

JW: [Laughs] Yeah. “Juicy fruit. Passion fruit. Brain juice.” I mean, those are four lines, but they’re the best.

JC: So far, what has been your biggest challenge in the process of designing the sound for this show?

JW: Honestly the workload. This show is very heavy on sound, and I’ve not only had to compose instrumental stuff which is my usual, but I also had to write lyrics for it, and I don’t do that. For myself, personally, I’ve written lyrics for things, and songs and whatnot, but doing it for a show was such a huge time constraint. And at the time, I didn’t know who was going to be singing any of those lyrics so having to do just a generic vocal range and vocal part was just very difficult.

JC: Without giving too much away, what part of the production are you most excited to do/see on stage?

JW: Um. Philomel. Her character in general. I’m very excited to actually see it come to life because Clara and I have worked together quite a bit with her learning the music. So her staging as she’s singing everything…I’m really excited for that.

JC: Using three words, describe our production of Polaroid Stories:

JW: