Tom Demar

About Tom Demar

Tom Demar grew up in a blue-collar town thirty miles upriver from Pittsburgh, PA, a simple and magical place where beautiful people got by. His nearsightedness was diagnosed in the second grade, after a year of blurry vision. During first-grade outdoor play periods he shouted out friends’ names to find them. Since then he’s looked out at the world trying to figure out: “What's going on? What's happening? What's it all about?” Tom takes careful notes, keeping a mini notebook handy at all times, writing about frustrations and near misses. He has giant boxes full of completed little notebooks. Probably no one would understand Tom's notes, but he works to be succinct if not sublime, sometimes with rhyme. Having experienced great adventures of imagination and a million different jobs, or no job, and having lived in cities around the world, meeting everyone, Tom is closing in on the mysteries of the universe. 

Tom’s first emphases in college were music and journalism. In Pittsburgh he played at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. After graduating from Penn State, he moved to New York City and played in theaters such as Ensemble Studio Theater, The Actors Studio, Naked Angels, and pop-up stages in basements, storefronts and warehouses. After traveling through Europe for a year (Italy, Paris, Spain, Budapest, Croatia), he drove across the U.S. to Los Angeles, where he has participated as writer-director-composer and performer on stages at CalArts, Acme Comedy Theater, the Met Theater, Underground Theater, and COLSAC. One of his plays became a film that screened at Dances With Films festival at the Laemmle Theater.

Tom continues to travel, driving to Oregon, Seattle, Kansas City, Florida and many other places. He tells the stories of hopes and dreams, desires and desperation, the wilder side of America. Tom has been described as a man who listens.