A door opened inside a ballroom at The Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville to reveal the theatrical scene of a fancy party that is interrupted by a few arguments.
Nineteen guests were soon ushered next door to watch the rest of the play, Luminous, unfold on a minimal black stage.
The play was produced, acted and directed by a theater company founded by Coleman Ray Clark, 18, a Fayetteville High School senior, with the help of two friends.
"We've been able to build a company that can stand by itself and can operate for three years," he said. "It's all done by students."
The New Threshold Theatre produced its first show The Iliad, The Odyssey, and All Greek Mythology in 99 Minutes or Less in January 2013. Performances of Luminous from Nov. 12-15 marked the company's seventh production in two years and was the first show written by a student.
Three more shows are planned for the company's final season, which will conclude this summer, before its founder goes to college.
High school students sometimes will produce a play independent of their school, but it's unusual for a high school student to have the passion and ambition to start a theater company run by students and keep it going, said Warren Rosenaur, a theater teacher of 30 years at Fayetteville High School.
Rosenaur researched other similar theater companies run by students and found few nationwide, he said.
"This is extraordinary," Rosenaur said. "This is pretty difficult to maintain a consistency of a theater company where they're doing multiple plays in a year and getting kids to come back and audition. It's Coleman's kind of personality."
The beginning
Clark remembers seeing a musical as a young child, returning home and creating a show with bed sheets and lamps for his parents, he said. His parents saw that he enjoyed theater and kept taking him to shows.
He was in elementary school when he was cast in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville's production of the musical Into the Woods.
Clark continued to take roles for university shows, TheatreSquared and Arts Live Theatre on through high school. This school year, he is president of his high school's thespian troupe and director of his high school's production of Nothing Is the End of the World (Except the End of the World), with performances planned this winter.
"I've always had a passion to create and to be making something," Clark said. "I believe theater is such an art."
The idea to form a theater company came from a conversation Clark had with Erika Wilhite, who works with the professional company TheatreSquared. Clark was intrigued when she told him about a youth-run theater company in Orlando, Fla., where she had lived.
"That was crazy inspiring," Clark said. "For weeks after that, I couldn't sleep. I kept dreaming of this company."
Wilhite met Clark through a Shakespeare Academy that TheatreSquared organizes for students during the summer. She remembers Clark talking about his interest in directing and developing a show with his own budget.
Wilhite is the founder of the Artists' Laboratory Theatre, in addition to her work with TheatreSquared. She encouraged Clark and gave him ideas about how to raise money and present a show.
"They did it, and they did it well," Wilhite said. "They keep getting better at it."
Clark took the idea of a youth-run theater company to his friends Reed Carson, also a Fayetteville High School student, and Jacob Benson, who at the time attended Har-ber High School in Springdale.
"We loved the idea of us being able to learn about theater through trial and error," Clark said.
While they appreciate their experiences with youth theater, the students felt they would have more freedom to participate in all aspects of a production, including directing, if they ran the company, Carson said.
"It was something we all had in the back of our heads," Carson said.
The trio decided to launch a fundraising campaign on the Kickstarter website in the fall 2012 and set a goal of raising $1,000, Clark said. The campaign generated $1,200, with a big chunk going to purchase the rights and scripts for the show, he said.
They began rehearsals for their first show during the fundraising campaign, Clark said. They staged the first three shows in a warehouse, he said.
They made $1,500 and had enough to finance the second show of their inaugural season, Charade, Clark said. They also sought sponsorships from individuals and businesses.
This September, at the beginning of its third season, New Threshold put on a full Broadway production of Into the Woods in the Fayetteville High School auditorium with a budget that was eight times more than what they had for their first show, Clark said. The work is mainly through volunteers.
Rosenaur remembers talking to Clark about Into the Woods and asking the young thespian if he knew how difficult the musical is.
"The music alone is difficult," Rosenaur said. "He came up with a very interesting and novel concept for the show. It worked beautifully."
Learning through experience
In planning for the third season of New Threshold, Clark offered several suggestions to an adult advisory board in deciding on a drama to produce for the second show of the season. One option was Carson's play Luminous.
Clark said the students were cautious because the play is a genre known as "absurdism," has some kissing scenes, fighting and profanity. The board offered its unanimous support.
"The general response was that producing a show like this and having a student writer getting to produce his play is something that doesn't happen very often," Clark said. "If you've got somebody that you trust with the script and the direction, why would you not?"
Doing Carson's play gave the students the freedom to edit the script as they rehearsed, Clark said. Carson some days would arrive with a new scene.
Carson said absurdism can make audiences feel trapped and provides information without giving the audience straight answers about what's happening. In Luminous, an argument among three friends progresses to a fatal ending for all three characters.
"It was pushing the envelope," Carson said. "It was different."
Carson said some scenes include strong language.
"My mother came to see it. I had to warn her there was some language," he said. "I was hoping people wouldn't be offended."
After performances, Carson remembers walking into the hotel hallway to see a crowd of people, he said. They asked lots of questions. Some audience members liked the show, but others did not, a reaction that left Carson with his own questions about the absurdist genre.
A future in theater
Carson plans to pursue a double major in writing and directing film in college, he said. Through New Threshold, he has learned about getting funding, working with a variety of people, finding locations, and responding to upset patrons and good and bad reviews, he said.
"It opened up my eyes to things I wouldn't have thought of," Carson said. "I feel like now I can take a lot more stress."
The youth-run company also had an impact on Macey McDowell, who graduated in May from Shiloh Christian School in Springdale. New Threshold not only produced shows, but also has side projects, such as a sketch comedy film series, NTT Live, McDowell said. She contributed to the writing and acting.
The series was filmed in downtown Fayetteville and aired on the city's public broadcast channel, she said. McDowell wrote about her experiences with New Threshold in her applications for college and scholarships.
She was accepted into the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Ga. Her involvement in New Threshold helped her win a scholarship, she said.
The experiences at New Threshold also helped McDowell land one of 6,000 internships with the Disney College Program, she said. Her four-month internship begins in April.
For McDowell, 19, New Threshold theater bridged a gap that exists between performing in youth theater and performing in a professional environment, she said. She hopes to become a director of TV shows, she said.
Clark spent one weekend this month interviewing and auditioning at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City.
Clark filled his portfolio with information about his experiences in theater, including directing four shows for his theater company and his work designing sets and lighting, he said. He met other students from New York and New Jersey who had no experience in high school directing shows, he said.
"This is really preparing a lot of us for college and for what our careers will be later in life," he said.
NW News on 11/29/2014