After the publication of his first poetry collection, Odd Boy, Martin Jude Farawell (Playwright/Performer) reflects on the experiences that led him to transform family trauma into art. If I Sing asks, What is the cost of finding our voices? Of keeping silent? This solo show takes us on a journey across a lifetime and explores how, even while struggling, we can make the life we want and experience love and joy. If I Sing, directed by David Demke, premiered at New York’s 2025 Shakespeare SlayFest.
Martin’s plays have been performed off-off-Broadway and by regional, college and community theaters from Los Angeles to South Africa. A graduate of New York University’s Creative Writing Program, he has been the recipient of a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. As an actor, he has been a company member at Pulse Ensemble, The Shakespeare Project, Pike Street Arts Center and Electric City Improv. He is the author of Odd Boy (Sibling Rivalry Press) and Genesis (New Spirit Press) and his work has appeared in many journals and anthologies. Odd Boy was a Pushcart Prize and National Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize.
Dave Demke (Director) holds an MFA in Performance from the University of Maryland. He was Artistic Director of Stark Raving Theatre in Portland, Oregon, and Associate Director of Training for Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, Massachusetts. As an actor, he has appeared in productions in New York and regionally, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in Beijing, China. As a director, he’s worked extensively in Portland, with Shakespeare & Company, Tennessee Shakespeare Company, and guest-directed at various universities, colleges and conservatories. He is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher and currently the Artistic Director of Shakespeare On the Fly in New York.