About Us
Sparks Creative Stories began in the first months of pandemic lockdown, when kids were scared and isolated – so the Sparks Collaborative Ensemble began performing bedtime plays live on the telephone, with actors and our audience all calling in from home.
Now Sparks shares free illustrated audiobooks and audio podcasts in English and in Spanish, and stories filmed in ASL. Wonderful performers bring stories to life, and illustrations are created by internationally-known visual artists, by scientists, by cool organizations – and by kids like you.
Rainbow Book illustration (detail) by member artists of Creative Clay
The Sparks Collaborative Ensemble
is a working group of artists diverse in age, gender identity, ethnicity, ability and artforms – creating joyous performance works that none of us could make alone.
Tuba Party (detail) by Shasta G. and Lisa Glaser
Led by playwright and audio producer Sheila Cowley, Sparks is a welcoming creative team where professional and emerging artists of all ages, backgrounds and abilities create performance work together.
You can explore our multi-arts performance works at sdcowley.com/collaborations. We’re based in St. Petersburg FL in Tampa Bay.
We Take Requests!
Our most popular Sparks story, Isaac’s Firetruck, was a request from an enthusiastic fan of our live telephone performances.
You can use our Contact Page to let us know what kind of story you’d like Sparks to make!
Skyway (detail) by Aaron F. of CreativeClay.org