For nearly three decades Paul Herwig has worked as an actor, director-creator, teacher, and scenic designer for small companies in France, Canada, and the US. He left his hometown of Albert Lea Minnesota (pop. 18,356) to go to the big university in the big city, but always knew he would find an art school and skirt the academic path. To that end he applied to a private theatre school in Paris - the Jacques Lecoq International School of Movement and Theatre - and although under the age limit, was accepted on a trial basis. He got his butt kicked, but survived and graduated in 1983, one of 35 of an original 150 to make it through the various cuts over the 2-year program.

Staying in Europe for a couple of years, he performed in Scotland and throughout rural western France. Then in the mid 80’s, motivated to move back stateside by both a bout of homesickness, and Ronald Reagan’s threat to jail student loan defectors, Paul returned home to pay off his debts, but instead he joined a scrappy band of Lecoq-trained physical-theatre performers, drawn together out of a feeling of isolation and a desire to make art, that became Theatre Grottesco, which is now located in Sante Fe as one of the nation's longest running ensembles. With Grottesco he toured internationally to Budapest and Toronto, and in the U.S. to twenty-five states on over fifteen coast-to-coast tours performing in venues from San Francisco's Theatre Artaud to Philadelphia's Painted Bride. Paul, in an attempt to force his unorganized round head into an administrative square hole, was also Grottesco's Booking Manager, successfully booking and managing several national tours and representing the company at regional and national booking conferences. He also dutifully paid his student loans.

In a bid to assert his own artistic personality, and with dreams of making a lot of money doing TV commercials, Paul relocated to Toronto and attempted to turn himself into a free-lance actor, performing for six years on several cross-Canada tours with a variety of commercial, summer, and regional theatres He also worked as a Movement Coach for the Young People's Theatre in Toronto and the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa. But soon, tiring of being asked to go to mime auditions, while time and again being asked why he was in Canada at all instead of making a bid for fame back home, Paul set about a plan to return to the States and start his own company.

During this time of vagabonding around North America, Paul mounted several small exhibitions of his visual art work – paintings and drawings - in Detroit, Toronto, and the Twin Cities, in both solo exhibitions and with artist collectives. He has also taught over two hundred physical theatre workshops for universities and professional companies and participated in five artist-in-residency programs with secondary schools in Ann Arbor and Toronto.

Then finally finding himself back in Minneapolis, Paul set up auditions for dancers for his first project and through several twists of fate – including hiring a different Jennifer, who ended up dropping out of the project on the first day of rehearsals, enabling him to work with this Jennifer, and so begin a life-long collaboration together in their own Off-Leash Area.

Now Paul performs both lead and ensemble roles for the company, directs and creates, designs and builds sets and props, dabbles in costuming, and co-manages the company. The unique aspect of his work as a theatre artist is in combining scenic design with performance, even integrating very the materials and techniques of visual art making into the live performance.

Paul received a MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant (2007), and a Playwrights' Center McKnight Foundation Theatre Artist Fellowship (2009). He is currently adjunct faculty at Macalester College, teaching Mask and Movement Improvisation for the Actor and Dancer.