On Friday night, the orange got a standing ovation.
Rolled onto the empty stage, the fruit came to rest in front of a single spotlight in the otherwise dark Durant High School auditorium.
The crowd cheered.
The ninth skit in the show, the orange’s debut was one of 30 short skits performed by Durant drama students during their spring production, Greg Allen’s “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.”
After the show was over, drama teacher Steve Arment overheard a student’s comments as they left the auditorium:
Was that a play?
“That’s a tremendous compliment,” Arment said. “That means we succeeded in our quest to be different. It’s a high-energy, audience-interactive show. It’s not normal. It’s not about anything. And, at the same time, it’s about everything.”
A Wharton High School graduate, Arment took over the drama department this year after former director Ed Mason retired.
“He’s been a very good mentor to me,” Arment said. “I remember him from my high school theater days at district competitions. He walks around here like a legend, because he is one. He started this department.”
But Arment never imagined that he would be running his own theater department, especially one so close to his former stomping grounds.
THE ART OF ACTING
Arment was in fifth grade the first time he saw a Broadway show. From then on, he knew he wanted to be an actor.
His days at Wharton included numerous theater competitions and productions, including his school’s own version of “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” Durant’s backdrops in the show are the ones Wharton used nearly two decades ago.
“My high school theater teacher, James Warren, is my dream catcher,” Arment said. “He encouraged me to follow my heart.”
After high school graduation, his heart led him to Southern Methodist University, a private university in Dallas, Texas. He graduated with a degree in theater, spent hundreds on a professional headshot and moved to New York City to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
“When I was 18 and 21 and starry-eyed, I thought, ‘Who needs a Plan B?” he said. “Plan B was, ‘See Plan A.’ Of course it was going to work out.”
In New York, Arment began working in the restaurant industry and auditioned for shows when he could. But as the years went by, he knew it was time to leave New York. When the opportunity arrived, he moved to Colorado to become a partner in a restaurant that was undergoing expansion.
“I left New York because I was ready for a change,” he said. “I don’t think I had met with the success I had wanted to when I moved there.”
And Colorado, he added, had always been a destination on his bucket list. But there were no stages, no curtain calls, no thrill of stepping into the spotlight. And though he was now living across the country, his first love tugged at his heartstrings.
“I think I felt that void,” he said. “I thought, ‘What are you doing? Why are you a restaurant manager?’ It was ridiculous, it was a cop out. I felt the absence of art.”
He moved back to Florida and spent a year subbing for schools.
“You talk about a training session,” Arment said. “That was something.”
When the position at Durant became available — three drama classes and three honors junior English classes — Arment jumped at the opportunity. Under the stage lights again, he was met with the same hopes and desires from his students that he had 17 years ago.
“When I look back on that New York headshot, I guess it makes me happy that I had all those experiences,” he said. “It counts because of the new direction I’m trying to take in my career. It means something. All the things I did wrong, I can help them do right.”
And if his kids have those same dreams, Arment said, he would fully support them.
“I just don’t see how I couldn’t be supportive of that dream,” he said. “But now that I am 35 and looking back, I have to bring up the idea of a fallback plan. I would tell them to go for it. I would tell them to get the four-year college experience, and then go. I can already see the growth this year. Some people had never been onstage before, and now they’re filling up the stage. It makes me proud to have been part of that journey. It feels young. It’s a new era, if you will.”
In “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” — the second weekend of the show will be held Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29 — the audience yells out skit numbers to determine the performance order. The cast runs around the auditorium and sits with audience members. Water is poured over an actor’s head. Light from flashlights dance from one end of the theater to the other.
“It’s not about anything,” Arment said. “And it’s about everything. I’ve had so many different levels of life experiences the last 15 years. If you look at my life through a wide-angle lens, it will seem a little disjointed. But the elements come together to make a good show.”
The Friday night show ends and the students run to the front of the stage for their bows. As the audience claps, one student holds out the orange for another round of applause.
For some, it’s one of their final performances before graduation. They stand against the backdrops that Arment helped paint during his own high school days.
They’re 18 and starry-eyed, and their Plan B is ‘See Plan A.’
And they might not end up where they want to go, Arment knows, but someway, somehow, life will call a skit number, and they’ll end up where they’re supposed to be.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.