When Ryan Wonnacott Sparks was at H.C. Mines Elementary School in Howland, he would create plays and stage them with his friends. One of those plays was staged for the entire school.

Sparks is working on a somewhat larger scale these days. The 2004 Howland High School graduate and his husband, Kendal Sparks, formed the theatrical production company Frankly Spoken Productions.

In its first year, the two shows Frankly Spoken co-produced — the revival of the Jule Styne / Stephen Sondheim / Arthur Laruents musical “Gypsy,” starring Audra McDonald, and “Just in Time,” the new musical about singer Bobby Darin starring Jonathan Groff — received a combined 11 Tony Award nominations

“Gypsy” is nominated for best revival of a musical, an award that goes to the show’s producers, so the couple could have a Tony Award to decorate their suburban Atlanta home or their New York apartment after the ceremony (8 p.m. Sunday on CBS and Paramount+).

“It’s been a whirlwind having two shows on Broadway in the same season,” Sparks said.

Sparks started out pursuing a career on stage. He worked steadily as an actor in his 20s, doing regional theater throughout the country as well as some shows in New York, including one Off-Broadway.

His “survival job” when he didn’t have an acting gig was with Sweet Hospitality Group, which does catering and concessions in the theater world, and he frequently worked with the same group of theaters, which became part of ATG Entertainment, which operates theaters around the world.

“When my husband got a full-time, 9-to-5 job, I decided I wanted to try and do the same thing,” Sparks said. “I really started from the bottom. I was doing anything and everything, basically a glorified office manager at the time. Luckily my husband took a job in marketing and advertising, and it allowed me to take a pay cut to do something a little less glamorous but in a field that I love.”

He worked on “Dear Evan Hansen” as a company management associate and handled the “house seats,” the tickets held back for celebrities. At the time, it was one of the hottest shows on Broadway, so the demand was great for those tickets.

“I was in the right place at the right time and met a bunch of cool people who all just kind of encouraged me to continue working in general management and ticketing,” he said.

Another big break was being accepted in the Broadway League’s Rising Stars program for young theater professionals.

“The year that I did it, I was one of the only non-producers, and so I met a bunch of young colleagues that were all producing,” he said. “A couple of them became very good, close friends and have kind of helped my husband and I form our production company.”

When the opportunity to get involved with “Gypsy” first happened, Sparks passed without even consulting his husband. But that decision gnawed at him for professional reasons and personal ones.

They started Frankly Spoken because they wanted to help develop shows that lift up underrepresented voices or put a new spin on traditional stories. “Gypsy” does both by casting six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald as its demanding stage mother.

“Watching it play out on this family of black women as opposed to a family of white women, It just reads so differently, and it has a different impact,” Sparks said. “Rose is looked at as this tyrannical stage mother that everyone hates. On a black woman, it’s just a woman who’s fighting to get her daughters seen. It’s amazing how different circumstances and different backgrounds and different life experiences can bring that much difference to what is considered the most perfect Broadway musical that’s ever been written.”

While they’ve been actively making the rounds at all of the pre-party events in New York, Sparks and his husband decided to have a big viewing party at their Georgia home, complete with a red carpet and a giant floating screen in their swimming pool.

“We’re doing the whole thing up for our family and our investors, because that’s how we got here,” he said. “It was all of these people that believed in us, that were like, ‘Hey, you should do this thing’ that we, I don’t think, ever really saw for ourselves. It just felt right.'”