Rising Stars: Meet Paul Romig-Leavitt of Broomfield

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Romig-Leavitt.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been living and working in the Denver metro area for the last 25 years as a musician, actor, and director. I also run another nonprofit that helps metro area churches find artists and worship leaders for their services.
In July of 2024, my wife Christa and I were contacted by Backstory Theater. Our family has been involved with the organization for about 10 years—both of our kids have participated in their programs for many years. We knew that the previous executive director had left at the end of 2023, and since then, the theater had struggled to find a long-term replacement to help the organization continue to grow.
They asked me to come in as a consultant to help turn the corner for their business. When I saw that the issue was more than a quick fix Christa and I came on as the Executive and Artistic Directors and took on the challenge of restructuring the organization and getting them out of a significant financial hole. Today, we’re finishing the year strong, having brought the company back to financial stability. We’ve also been searching for a new space to hold our permanent classes. Throughout 2024, we’ve been holding classes at the Broomfield Community Center and other venues around Broomfield, and we’ve seen tremendous enrollment and participation from our community. We’re very excited about the future.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has definitely not been smooth. For the first three months, Christa and I worked without pay, volunteering our time to negotiate out of a lease we couldn’t afford and, unfortunately, letting go of many great teachers. We had to downsize a lot of the props, sets and equipment we owned so we could afford to slowly bring teachers back and focus on reacquiring funding that the organization had lost in 2024.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My career has mostly been defined by exploring the relationship between art and faith or spirituality. I grew up as an evangelical Christian, and that perspective in my upbringing made me want to explore deeper relationships between morality, society, emotions, and psychology. I grew to be a storyteller—working on stage as an actor and then as a musician.
I always felt a little uncomfortable in both environments because I ask a lot of questions, which made people from my more conservative Christian upbringing uncomfortable. But I also had a real belief in the supernatural and metaphysical that I wanted to explore, and I found that this perspective is universal to most people.
I do really well working with growing leaders and developing teams because I really love people and how creative we can be. For about 15 years, I wrote and directed for a Christian youth conference that traveled around the country and performed my original work for probably around 500,000 people. I developed training in many different areas—video production, music, and acting—which gave me a wide understanding of how to create and develop events.
I’ve had some unusual experience in technical production as well. For the last five years, I’ve worked at the Aspen Ideas Festival, helping speakers, authors, and activists from around the world develop their presentations for audiences of the Aspen Institute. That puts me right into the environment where I love to be—among ideas and creative people.

What makes you happy?
I don’t know if I use the word “happy” very much. I don’t know if it’s something I really pursue as much as I pursue joy.
What brings me joy is seeing people—especially young leaders—grow, change, and become more creative. I get a lot of joy from creating with my daughters. My oldest daughter is 20 years old and also a musician, so performing with her, writing with her, and helping her produce her music brings me tremendous joy.
It also brings me joy to create the environment at Backstory Theater for the kids I call “the weirdos.” We really love weirdos. We are weirdos. It means a lot to me to protect an environment for kids who don’t have any other place to belong but have a creative spark and love to be expressive. When kids are teenagers or in middle school, everybody is looking for a place to belong. Kids often find that in social groups or sports groups, but for those who don’t fit within those groups—who love theater, love to sing, love to act, love to be imaginative—that’s the environment we like to cultivate.
It brings me endless joy to see what we create together. We just finished our fall production of Newsies, and seeing the joy on parents’ faces and kids’ faces when they get to express their artistic skill and talent with something they’ve worked so hard for—just being able to provide that space brings me a lot of joy.

Pricing:

• We offer classes and camp’s year round at very affordable rates. prices vary per class.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://backstorytheatre.org
• Instagram: @backstorytheatre
• Facebook: @backstorytheatre

Image Credits
For images #1 and #2 photo credit: Hideki Ueha. the rest of the images belong to Paul Romig-Leavitt