Christopher Demos-Brown is a Miami trial lawyer, and playwright with over a dozen full-length plays and screenplays to his credit. [1] Several of his plays have earned multiple regional theater awards over the years but it wasn't until November 4, 2018 that American Son debuted as his first Broadway play, opening at the historic Booth Theatre. The play was directed by Kenny Leon, and starred Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan and Eugene Lee. [2] His film adaptation of the play, also titled American Son, premiered on Netflix in November 2019 as a television drama, and was nominated for a 2020 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie. [3]
Chris was born in Philadelphia, but by the time he was in the fourth grade had moved to Miami with his family. [4] He attended Dartmouth College in the mid-1980s, majoring in Russian with a minor in history, with a potential goal of joining the United States Foreign Service. In 1992, he graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, [4] and the University of Geneva. [5]
His interest in the performing arts became serious while he was attending Dartmouth. He acted in several stage productions and directed some short plays. [4] Prior to attending law school, Chris spent two years in Los Angeles pursuing an acting career. When asked about acting during a 2018 interview with Broadway Buzz, he said, “I wanted to be an actor in the worst way, and I was an actor in the worst way, unfortunately.” [1] He focused his efforts on being a playwright instead. [2]
After law school, Christopher Brown and Stephanie Demos were in training to be prosecutors when they met at the state attorney's office in Miami-Dade. [6] After they married, Chris chose to keep both last names hyphenated as Demos-Brown. They work together as trial lawyers in Miami. In 2010, they and their close friends, (playwright/actor) McKeever] [ dead link ] and (director/playwright/actor) Stuart Meltzer, co-founded Zoetic Stage, a professional theatre company at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Stephanie serves as board president, and Chris is the company's literary manager. [6]
Year | Production | Honors/Awards | Ref |
---|---|---|---|
2009 | When The Sun Shone Brighter | Carbonell Award for Best New Work in (2011) Silver Palm Award for Best New Work in (2011) | [7] |
2011 | Captiva | Silver Palm Award for Best New Work | [8] |
2013 | American Hero (formerly Fear Up Harsh) | 2014 Steinberg Citation from the American Theatre Crtitics Association Carbonell Award for Best New Work | [9] |
2015 | Stripped | Silver Palm Award for Outstanding New Work Top Ten Plays of 2015 (Miami New Times) | [10] |
2016 | American Son | Laurents/Hatcher Award (2016) Won 5 Berkshire Theatre Awards including Best Production and Best New Play (2016) | [11] |
2018 | Wrongful Death & Other Circus Acts | Best South Florida Play of 2018 - Boca Magazine (John Thomason) Carbonell Award for Best New Work (2019) Silver Palm Award for Best New Work (2019) | [12] |
2020 | American Son (film adaptation, TV drama) | 2020 Primetime Award Nomination for Outstanding Television Movie | [13] |
Michael John McKean is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, singer, and musician. Over his career he has received a Grammy Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and television shows since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990) and Jim Ignatowski in the comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), for which he won two Emmy Awards.
Nathan Lane is an American actor. Since 1975, he has been on stage and screen in both comedic and dramatic roles. His awards include three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2010, The New York Times hailed Lane as being "the greatest stage entertainer of the decade".
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage and television. His accolades included an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making him the only Canadian recipient of the "Triple Crown of Acting". He also received a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as a nomination for a Grammy Award.
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and five Tony Awards.
William Hall Macy Jr. is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is two-time Emmy Award and four-time Screen Actors Guild Award winner, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Drama Critics' Circle Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Michael Frank Park is an American actor, best known for his roles as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns, Larry Murphy in the original Broadway cast of Dear Evan Hansen (2016), and reporter Tom Holloway in the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2019).
Adam Arkin is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing the role of Aaron Shutt on Chicago Hope. He has been nominated for numerous awards, including a Tony as well as three primetime Emmys, four SAG Awards, and a DGA Award. In 2002, Arkin won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for My Louisiana Sky. He is also one of the three actors to portray Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck on Monk. Between 2007 and 2009, he starred in Life. Beginning in 1990, he had a recurring guest role on Northern Exposure playing the angry, paranoid Adam, for which he received an Emmy nomination. In 2009, he portrayed villain Ethan Zobelle, a white separatist gang leader, in Sons of Anarchy and Principal Ed Gibb in 8 Simple Rules (2003–2005). His brother Matthew is also an actor, as was his father, Alan Arkin.
Christopher David Noth is an American actor. He is known for his television roles as NYPD Detective Mike Logan on Law & Order (1990–1995), Big on Sex and the City (1998–2004), and Peter Florrick on The Good Wife (2009–2016).
Robert Elmer Balaban is an American actor, director, producer and writer. Aside from his acting career, Balaban has directed three feature films, in addition to numerous television episodes and films, and was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for Gosford Park (2001), in which he also appeared. He is also an author of children's novels.
Joshua Aaron Charles is an American film, television, and theater actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on Sports Night, Will Gardner on The Good Wife, which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and his early work as Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society and Bryan from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Bobby Cannavale is an American actor. His breakthrough came with the leading role as FDNY Paramedic Roberto "Bobby" Caffey in the NBC series Third Watch, which he played from 1999 to 2001.
Frank William Chase is an American actor, director, and singer, best known for his work on Broadway and for his role as country superstar Luke Wheeler on ABC's Nashville.
Raphael Sbarge is an American actor and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Jake Straka on The Guardian (2001–04), Jiminy Cricket / Dr. Archibald Hopper on Once Upon a Time (2011–18) and Inspector David Molk on the TNT series Murder in the First (2014–16). He is also known for voicing Carth Onasi in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), RC-1262 / "Scorch" in Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005) and Kaidan Alenko in the Mass Effect trilogy (2007–12).
Barnet Kellman is an American theatre, television and film director, television producer and film actor, and educator, best known for the premiere productions of new American plays, and for the pilots of long-running television series such as Murphy Brown and Mad About You. He is the recipient of two Emmy Awards and a Directors Guild of America Award. He is the co-founder and director of USC Comedy at the School of Cinematic Arts, and holds the school's Robin Williams Endowed Chair in Comedy.
Tracy S. Letts is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. He started his career at the Steppenwolf Theatre before making his Broadway debut as a playwright for August: Osage County (2007), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. As an actor, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2013).
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and four Grammy Awards. Lithgow received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2005.
Peter L. Wittrock Jr., known professionally as Finn Wittrock, is an American actor who began his career in guest roles on several television shows. He made his film debut in 2004, in Halloweentown High before returning to films in the 2010 film Twelve. After studying theater at The Juilliard School, he was a regular in the soap opera All My Children from 2009 to 2011, while performing in several theatrical productions. In 2011, he performed in playwright Tony Kushner's Off-Broadway play The Illusion and made his Broadway debut in 2012 as Happy Loman in the revival of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, directed by Mike Nichols.
Bill Camp is an American actor. He has played supporting roles in many films such as Lincoln (2012), Compliance (2012), Lawless (2012), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Love & Mercy (2015), Loving (2016), Molly's Game (2017), Vice (2018), Wildlife (2018), Joker (2019), News of the World (2021), and Sound of Freedom (2023); the HBO miniseries The Night Of in 2016 and The Outsider in 2020; and the Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit in 2020. He had a recurring role in the HBO drama series The Leftovers from 2015 to 2017 and the Hulu space drama series The First in 2018.
Jeffrey Richards is an American Broadway theatre producer who has presented both new and revived works for the Broadway stage. His most notable productions include Spring Awakening, August: Osage County, Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America, and Porgy and Bess, as well as numerous premieres by Tracy Letts and David Mamet. He is the recipient of eight Tony Awards.