'Children Will Listen'

Coleman Ray Clark is 18 -- barely. His birthday was Sept. 13.

That's important to know -- because two years ago, just after he turned 16, the Fayetteville High School student started a theater company. And now, New Threshold Theatre will kick off its third season with "Into the Woods" Sept. 25, 27 and 28.

Clark doesn't seem to think he's done anything extraordinary.

"I've always had a drive for theater and performing, for creating in general," he says. "My parents aren't theater people, so I don't really know where it came from."

Clark credits Erika Wilhite of Artist's Laboratory Theatre for the idea of a company by young people, for young people.

"She basically planted a seed in my head that this could be something Northwest Arkansas could handle. For weeks, I couldn't sleep. Where would we get money? Who would come to the shows? Who would participate?"

Clark went to professionals, both in the theater world and outside it, to ask how to run his fledgling nonprofit, and in November 2012, the company was born. His goal, he says, was to get as many students involved as he could and entice anyone not involved to want to be front and center in the first row.

In the previous two seasons, the company presented five shows total. Coleman is counting on producing five shows this year alone.

"When we choose shows, we try to pick things we think no other youth company could do or if they did, there would be no way on earth they could do it like this," he says. "As a business, you want to be different and try new things."

Clark loves "Into the Woods" because of an early experience working with Amy Herzberg at University Theatre, he admits, but it also met his criteria. Other youth companies would likely do the "junior" version, he says, but New Threshold Theatre will do the complete show, filled with all the Stephen Sondheim songs from "Hello, Little Girl" to "Agony" to "Giants in the Sky." As director, he also had the opportunity to reduce the actor count by giving each of them more than one role. He wants to see "every member of this cast working incredibly hard all the time." And he's set the play within a play, focusing the actors on storytelling -- because, as he points out, "Children Will Listen."

-- Becca Martin-Brown

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