We were lucky to catch up with Paul Millet recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Paul, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Wicked Lit – Site Specific Theatrical Production. As the Artistic Director of Unbound Productions, I created this site-specific theatrical production with two partners. The production featured adaptations of classic horror literature and was produced in a working mausoleum for a decade.

Linked by Love – Limited television series. I was hired to edit this limited television series to raise awareness of kidney disease and kidney transplantation. It was one of the most rewarding editing jobs I have ever had.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been working in the Los Angeles area for the past 25 years as both a television editor and a theatre artist.

In the television world, I’ve spent the last decade working as one of the staff editors on the popular HGTV show House Hunters while also taking on other independent video projects as my schedule has permitted. This steady job with such longevity is extremely rare in the television field, and it has allowed my endeavors in the theatre world to freely evolve over the past two decades.

In the theatre world, I’ve spent the past 20 years working primarily as a producer and director for companies all over the Southern California region from Moorpark to Anaheim. In 2008, I founded Unbound Productions with a couple of partners, Jonathan Josephson and Jeff G. Rack. Unbound is a non-profit theatre company with the mission to create new play adaptations from literary source material and present the work in unconventional spaces. I served as the company’s Artistic Director from the start. The company’s largest and most successful project was Wicked Lit which featured adaptions of classic horror stories. The primary venue for Wicked Lit was Mountain View Mausoleum & Cemetery in Altadena, but Unbound also produced the show at other locations including Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills and Strub Mansion in Pasadena just to name a few.

In addition to Wicked Lit, we also developed History Lit and Mystery Lit at Unbound. Like Wicked Lit, these productions took place in alternative venues including the Fenyes Mansion on the campus of the Pasadena Museum of History and the Santa Anita Train Depot at the LA County Arboretum, We also developed an education program with Pasadena Unified School District, a new play development program called First Stab with the Pasadena Central Library and a Membership program for our regular patrons.

At the end of 2019, I made the decision to step away from Unbound to pursue new theatrical challenges since the company has totally consumed my creative life. But with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, all my plans were derailed and (like a lot of people) I spent a good part of the last couple of years trying to figure out what was next.

In 2022, I was hired by Celtino Entertainment to edit a limited series for television called Linked by Love. The goal of the series is to raise awareness of kidney disease especially in the African American community. It was one of the most rewarding editing projects I have ever done and it has inspired me to establish my own entertainment company that will not only provide post production services to inspiring projects, but also fund work I am interesting in spearheading in both the television and theatre worlds.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My primary goal in my creative journey is actually quite simple. I want to create and/or be a part of projects that will have a positive meaningful impact on people’s lives and experiences.

In the past, Wicked Lit accomplished this by inspiring audiences to rediscover literature by producing adaptations of classic horror stories.

Linked by Love accomplished this by telling the story of an African American family overcoming the ravages of kidney disease and shedding light on what it is and how it’s treated.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’m actually going through this now!

For years (and I mean decades), I have considered myself as having two parallel career tracks. One in television post production as an editor and the other in the theatre world as a producer and director. Though the television track provided the bulk of my income, the theatre track did provide supplemental income. So they were both fulfilling both financially and artistically.

However my approach to both tracks was different. Because I have been fortunate to work on House Hunters, which is a successful television show that continues to get renewed, I have left that career track on “auto-pilot” so to speak and have put all my focus on advancing my theatre career through my directing projects and by spending over a decade as the Artistic Director of Unbound Productions. I had expected to reach a point in my theatre career where my work experience, life experience, talent and reputation would all coalesce and I would reach a point where I would be sought after as a theatre producer and director.

I left Unbound at the end of 2019 believing that I had reached that point. Unfortunately, I did not get the desired reaction from the theatre world as I departed Unbound and, when Covid-19 hit, everything I was working towards got scuttled.

Now, after a couple of years of reflection due to the pandemic, I have reconsidered what’s next for me. My new plans are to create my own company that will leverage my work in television post production to fund projects I want to do (both in television and theatre) and not rely on or even expect any support from other organizations. It’s exciting and I’m looking forward to continuing to forge my own path.   

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulmillet
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-millet-2556b77/

Image Credits
#1 Personal Photo – Rena Petrello #2 Paul at Fenyes Mansion – Daniel Kitayama #3 Jonathan Livingston Seagull Production Photo – Eric Keitel #4 Pasadena Weekly Cover – Danny Liao #5 Editing Linked by Love – Joe Camareno