True Colors

Whether in the courtroom or on the Broadway stage, Miami attorney and playwright Christopher Demos-Brown is a proven winner.

His play “American Son” enjoyed a successful run on Broadway from November 2018 through January 2019, starring headliners Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale and directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon.

“I really didn’t believe I had a play on Broadway until the curtains fell on opening night,” recalls Demos-Brown, 55. “I never would have guessed that this would be the play that would get me there.”

In 2019, the movie adaptation, which Demos-Brown wrote and produced and which features the same lead actors, premiered on Netflix. It has since seen a surge in popularity due to its timely topic.

Set in a Florida police station at night, the story centers on an estranged interracial couple looking for their missing son. Incidents of Black youth being victimized by police in addition to conversations with women in interracial marriages inspired the play, Demos-Brown says.

It has a pointed message, but he won’t spell it out because “it takes away from the audience’s experience if they know what I am trying to convey,” he says.

However, he adds: “There are certain conversations that are very difficult for Americans to have – religion, politics and race. We just don’t like to talk about those things.”

But success hasn’t spoiled him – “not yet,” laughs Demos-Brown. “I’m still out there struggling to get plays done.” 

He has since completed two more and is working on a television script.

Born in Philadelphia, he moved to Miami in fourth grade. Later, at Dartmouth College, he fell in love with playwriting, and he has now written 11. Yet, after graduating and trying his hand at acting, he earned a law degree from the University of Miami and became a prosecutor with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Eventually, he joined his attorney wife, Stephanie Demos, in private practice. They have two daughters and also helped co-found Miami’s Zoetic Stage in 2010.

Asked why he chose to hyphenate his wife’s maiden name with his own, he laughs: “Some guys buy their wives jewelry to say, ‘I love you.’ Others say it by taking their wife’s name and putting it on a Broadway play about a shattered marriage.” O