Kevin William Paul takes a quick break from rehearsals for the off-Broadway show The Baker’s Wife to jump on a phone interview. “I’m standing outside of the theater on a windy fall day in New York,” says Paul. “I’m in rehearsals from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. We are chugging away at each scene and getting ready for opening previews and…” He pauses mid-sentence. “Sorry, one second. Are you okay?” The interview is suspended for a few moments, and then he’s back on the line. “Somebody just fell in front of a car. I was making sure they were okay.”
The moment is quintessentially Paul. The rising Broadway star who is racking up credits alongside some of the industry’s top talent remains grounded in his small-town roots, quick to extend kindness even to a stranger on the streets of New York.
At press time, the Palm City native was starring in the role of Dominique in The Baker’s Wife. Paul took a leave of absence from The Outsiders (the show he has been acting in for the past two years) to play Dominique, a role he is proud to have made his own. “Dominique is a young man in a very small town—even smaller than Stuart or Jupiter—and he is looking for love and freedom and expression and has exhausted his experience in this small town,” he explains. “And then this young woman enters with the baker who is more than twice her age. He ends up falling for this young married woman and you can guess what happens then.”
Paul knew little about the show when a mentor suggested he audition for the role. Once he learned about the talent behind it, he was all in. “It was written by the same guy who wrote Fiddler on the Roof,” says Paul. (Joseph Stein wrote the book for both productions). “It was a show that was written a long time ago but had never been fully developed. I was so excited to originate my take of this role.” The music was also a draw. “It’s from Steven Schwartz, who wrote all the music for Wicked. He is one of the GOATs of musical theater.”
The Baker’s Wife is Paul’s second show on the Broadway scene. In 2023, he was cast in the role of Bob Sheldon in The Outsiders. He will return to the show after The Baker’s Wife closes.
Paul’s path to Broadway has been long and winding. At 30, he has a litany of television, film, and stage experience on his resume, but it all began on a stage at StarStruck Academy & Theatre in Stuart.
Acting was not always a passion for Paul, but it was for his mother, Jennifer Yormak, who founded StarStruck in 2000 as a nonprofit children’s performing arts center. “I got to be around it by virtue of what my parents did,” says Paul. “I was always playing sports, singing songs at the house, and had the expectation of whatever I do, do it to the best of my ability. School was always the most important thing—be a good person and work hard in school.”
Paul eventually came around, deciding that being on stage looked like fun. His first show was the musical High School Musical, a performance his mom remembers well. “I saw him on stage and thought, ‘Wow, this kid can act!’ I knew he could sing, but I didn’t know he could act,” says Yormak. “I didn’t tell him that, of course. I never felt it would be healthy to push my children into anything, much less what I loved.”
From that point, Paul was bitten by the acting bug and decided to pursue his new passion. “I have always had a certain engine inside of me that has pushed me to excel at what I do. Some people are just born with that kind of intensity. I get to set my mind to things and see them happen,” he says. Paul decided to focus on acting. “At the time I was looking to compete playing tennis. I was playing basketball, running cross country, playing guitar, and writing music. There were so many elements to what I was doing. So, at one point I decided I wanted to be great at something. I didn’t want to just be good at everything. That’s when I started to hone in.”
Paul appeared regularly on the StarStruck stage and spent summers in theater programs at New York University and Berklee College of Music. After graduating from The Pine School in 2014, Paul attended Carnegie Mellon University, graduating in 2018 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama. In his freshman year, he got his first professional acting role in summer stock at Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera. During his senior year, he landed his first film credit in Bottom of the Ninth. “I played the young Joe Manganiello in a baseball redemption story alongside Sophia Vergara,” says Paul. “What is beautiful is that Joe graduated from Carnegie Mellon 25 years before me. We really bonded over that.”
Paul moved to Los Angeles after college and immediately booked a few roles, adding several television credits to his resume. During the pandemic, he moved back home to South Florida for a bit, then backpacked around Europe on a self-described “soul-searching journey.”
In 2022, he moved to New York City and, after acting in Evil (a psychological horror series on Paramount+), he landed the role of Bob in The Outsiders.
While The Outsiders continues its run on Broadway, Paul explores other opportunities that pique his interest and auditions for roles in film, television, and theater. “I love the live aspect of theater and the community,” he says. “With film and television, I love the process and being able to shoot it and then have editors tweak it and create such nuance. Both are such exciting mediums.”
Asked what his dream role is, Paul admits he doesn’t have one. “I’m asked that a lot and my answer never changes; it’s whatever is next to come,” he says. Working with Angelina Jolie has been a highlight of his career so far. He confesses he was a bit starstruck meeting her for the first time. “She’s the main producer for The Outsiders. I was very giddy and excited to meet her. She has been incredibly supportive to us as artists and humans.” He lists Quentin Tarantino, Christian Bale, Ralph Fiennes, and the Safdie Brothers as other industry powerhouses he would love to work with.
While still a student at Carnegie Mellon, Paul was interviewed by Backstage Chatter, a publication covering the Pittsburgh theater scene. In the article, he talks about his dream to perform in a show he wrote. Asked to recall the interview, Paul says: “Aww. Did I really say that?” He laughs. “I still have that dream. I am always writing.”
But for now, Paul is thankful to be working in an industry he loves. “My goal is to continue to work with top-notch talent and people who are passionate about their work and to have fun doing it and along the way take time to pick my head up and continue to be grateful for my incredible family and support system around me.”
Back in Palm City, Yormak has no doubt her son will succeed in one of the hardest careers to break into. “Even from the time he was little, he went into everything 100 percent,” she says. “As a mom, I want for Kevin what he wants for himself. What we do is storytelling and with his talent, he is creating roles where people are seeing versions of themselves. I hope the world gets to see the many roles he creates.”
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