CFA’s Jim Demler and His Identical Twin Brother Make Their Off-Broadway Debut
In My Evil Twin, the vocalists mine their own lives for an unforgettable theater experience
Jim Demler (right), a CFA assistant professor of voice, and John, his identical twin brother, star in My Evil Twin, an autobiographical musical about their personal and professional lives. Courtesy of Eric Sawyer
CFA’s Jim Demler and His Identical Twin Brother Make Their Off-Broadway Debut
In My Evil Twin, the vocalists mine their own lives for an unforgettable theater experience
This article was originally published in BU Today on July 14, 2026. By Sophie Yarin
EXCERPT
Jim and John Demler are more than just identical twins. They’re both educators, both longtime professional vocalists and performers on and off-stage, and they both claim to be the evil twin.
“We have a lot of fun together—my wife really likes John, but she’s also very happy that he’s two hours away and not living in the same town,” says Jim, a Boston University College of Fine Arts assistant professor of voice. “She knows that when we get together, shall we say, evil ensues.”
The twins’ outsized dynamic leaves an impression on everyone they meet—including playwright/librettist Harley Erdman and composer/lyricist Eric Sawyer. Shortly after being introduced to the Demlers, the theater duo devised a plan to bring the twins’ all-the-world’s-a-stage antics to the real-life stage. The result, My Evil Twin, is an autobiographical musical starring the Deimlers as themselves. The show first premiered at Community Arts Trust in Northampton, Mass., in August 2021.
The show, which has been mounted at theater festivals in the twins’ hometown of Rochester, N.Y., and in Toronto, Canada, as well as a three-night engagement at Boston Center for the Arts, heads to New York this weekend, for a one-night-only performance on Saturday, July 18, at the Marjorie S. Dean Little Theater, a historic off-Broadway stage.
Curtains Up!
While Erdman and Sawyer fictionalized some of the show’s elements, the core of the production is a tribute to the Demler brothers’ larger-than-life personalities, their bond as twins, and their professional and personal lives. Jim has been a member of the CFA School of Theatre faculty for 22 years, while John, who lives in Pittsfield, Mass., and teaches middle-school French and Spanish, is a longtime professional vocalist who performs in his spare time.
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The audience is treated to moments from the Demlers’ childhood, high school and college years, early careers, and present-day shenanigans. They see romantic mishaps—like when John took a girl out who thought she was on a date with Jim—and bits of the playful sparring that marks the twins’ decades-long relationship.
“I think when we’re together we regress a little bit to when we were teenagers or even younger, and we could be pretty silly and stupid,” John admits.
But the show is full of contradictions—while there are some moments of levity, they are accompanied by more serious moments that touch on Jim and John’s tumultuous childhood and episodes where friendly competition turns into real contempt. Nothing is spared—family strife, personal loss, professional failure, and existential struggle are all fair game in My Evil Twin.