I don’t remember a world where I wasn’t performing — or creating, or make-believing, or doing anything I could to make stories come alive. I wish I could point to one exact moment, that discovery of knowing this is what I wanted to dedicate my life to. A lot of artists can trace back their “aha” moment—that first community theatre show where their eight-year-old self felt a spark shoot straight through them and thought, Oh. This is it. It’s not that I never felt that spark—I did. I still do. It’s that I don’t remember a version of myself before it. I don’t remember that turning point because there was never a time when the arts weren’t at the center of my world.

Like many other kids, I lived inside stories. I turned backyards into kingdoms, couches into pirate ships, my mother’s car into private concerts, or roped my classmates into making homemade astronaut uniforms for the next faraway planet we had to explore. Suddenly becoming someone else became a way of understanding myself. The defining moment I do remember though, was finally reaching the age when make believe wasn’t instinct anymore, when there was no longer permission to play, and all of a sudden your imagination was expected to shrink. You’re told to be realistic, to sit still, to outgrow fantasy. That is the moment I realized I wasn’t ready to let that part go. I didn’t want to outgrow the magic.

Theatre became the place where childlike instinct was encouraged, where telling and creating stories or “playing pretend” wasn’t something to abandon, it’s something that helps us understand what’s real. For me, that’s what’s at the very heart my devotion to this work: it forces us to step closer—towards one another, towards our fears, towards questions we don’t know how to answer. It is a reminder of how complicated, messy and contradictory humanity is, how all of those things can exist at once and still be beautiful. Overtime, that childhood playfulness has transformed into a profound commitment to storytelling. It’s what excites me, grounds me, challenges me and even on the hardest days, still feels like the only thing I can imagine doing for the rest of my life.

And now to introduce myself— Hi, I’m Paloma and I’m a New York–based actor, songwriter, mover, storyteller, and theatre-maker…you get the idea. All in all I’m someone who feels incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do. In May of 2025 I graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Drama, training at The Lee Strasberg Institute, The Atlantic Acting School, The Meisner Studio, and The International Theatre Workshop in Amsterdam. During my time at NYU, I completed the two-year core acting program at The William Esper Studio under the supervision of Karen Chamberlain. Before moving to New York, I trained in the UK at both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA), training that profoundly impacted my work as an artist.

Since living in the city, I’ve had the joy of performing in multiple productions—Viola in Twelfth Night (NYU), Lorraine in The Office plays (NYU), Tosh in Scenes with Girls (NYU), and Cindy in Fefu and Her Friends with the Broadstreet Players. One of my favorite performance experiences so far has been the opportunity of playing Jude in the U.S. premiere of Jordan Tannahill’s Is My Microphone On? off-Broadway at The Center at West Park, working alongside Marc Ruffalo and Nick Browne.