Tom Demar writes elevated topical dramedies with music and nostalgia. He delves deeply into the emotional life of the characters. He grew up in a small blue-collar town thirty miles downriver from Pittsburgh, PA. His first disciplines were music and journalism. After graduating from Penn State he moved to New York City and jumped into theater labs writing, directing and acting.

 

He traveled through Europe for a year, then drove across the U.S. to Los Angeles, where one of his plays, a coming-of-age hip hop comedy cast with a dozen young actors from an L.A. Job Corps acting class, and with a performance run on Hollywood's Theater Row, became a film that was selected by Dances With Films, a respected boutique indie film festival, screening at Laemmle Theater. Tom wrote, composed, directed and co-produced both the film, the stageplay, and the radio play performed live over KXLU, an L.A. college station. He was hooked.

 

Since then he's written, directed, co-produced, acted and/or composed music for features and shorts screened at Sundance, DGA, LA Live, Krikorian, Mann's Chinese, Downtown Independent and more. 

 

Tom is a member of ALAP (Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights) and the Craft Services Network of screenwriters and filmmakers. He has several original film projects in development, including:

 

I NEARLY LOST YOU,

FREE FLO, 

MY REASON TO LIVE  and

PARTY GIRL SAVES THE WORLD 

 

Tom pitches to producers and executives live and virtually, while also designing the lookbooks and EPKs. He also writes full-length stage plays and dream-like short stories.

 

Tom's theater experience helped him appreciate a layered, nuanced, subtextual, dialogue-driven style evident in his film scripts. His journalism training lends to his passion for research, listening and observing. And his musical upbringing helped develop his love for rhythm in speech and for colorful musical characters.
 

Tom relates hopes and dreams, desires and desperation, the wilder side of America. He's been described as a man who listens.