| About the Creators |
Director Martha Demson and actor Adrian Sparks spent many months researching Hemingway's life and writings, as a part of their commitment to an honest and respectful re-creation of this legendary and very real man. The result is a theatrical experience which leaves audiences moved and inspired. Martha Demson (Director) is the current Artistic Director of the Open Fist Theatre and received her principle theatrical education from Yale University. During her tenure, Ms. Demson has directed and/or produced many award-winning productions for the Fist, including (as a director) Abingdon Square (Fornes), Casanova (Congdon), Escape From Happiness (Walker), Vieux Carre (Williams), Flight Of The Earls (Humble), God's Country (Dietz). She made her Off-Broadway directorial debut in January of 2001 with a production of Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone. Ms. Demson is the recipient of four LA Weekly Theatre Awards (for Production, Production Design/Original Music) and seven Drama-Logue/Garland Awards (for Direction, Production, Performance and Sound Design). Adrian Sparks (Ernest Hemingway) has been a working professional actor for more than thirty five years. He has amassed an impressive theatrical resume with a heavy emphasis on the classics, playing leading roles at such theatres as the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Seattle Repertory, Old Globe San Diego, Center Stage Baltimore, Indiana Repertory, and Cincinnati Playhouse to name a few. His extensive Shakespearean credits include acting or directing assignments in Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Macbeth, Troilus and Cressida, Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado about Nothing, King Lear, Othello, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, As You Like It, Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry 4 (pts1&2), Henry 5, Henry 6 (pts1,2&3),and Richard 3. In addition, he has played leading roles in such other classic theater pieces as Hedda Gabler, The ThreePenny Opera, The Imaginary Invalid, Candida, All My Sons, Terra Nova, Volpone, A Doll's House, Galileo, Architect and Emperor of Assyria, The Miser, Chronicles of Hell, and The Tavern. For the last fifteen years Mr. Sparks has been working as an actor in Los Angeles, appearing in over fifty Film, TV and Commercial projects. John DeGroot (Author) is an award-winning playwright, communication specialist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has conducted writing and editing seminars throughout the United States and Europe. As a journalist, deGroot has garnered national awards for his coverage of breaking and in-depth news stories throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. He was an editor/writer on the Akron Beacon Journal news team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Deadline Reporting for its coverage of the Kent State University shootings in 1970. DeGroot has also written numerous scripts for film, television and stage. In 1996, PAPA was produced on Broadway starring Tony-award winning actor Len Cariou. Prior to its New York run, a Coconut Grove production of PAPA was named Best Play by the South Florida Drama Critics Association. In 1999, PAPA was read by James Earl Jones as part of Hemingway's 100th birthday celebration at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., because of its detailed research and historical accuracy. |