The stage is a
site of power.
Ruby Hill Productions is a community-rooted theatre organization dedicated to amplifying the voices of historically excluded communities in Southwest Denver — through live performance, education, and evidence-based storytelling.
To use the arts and science as instruments of belonging — ensuring those who have been institutionally removed, oppressed, or ignored are seen, heard, and woven permanently into the fabric of who we are.
A DENVER WHERE THE STORIES OF ITS MOST UNDERREPRESENTED COMMUNITIES ARE NOT SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE CITY'S CULTURAL IDENTITY — BUT FOUNDATIONAL TO IT.
Where the stage is recognized as a site of preservation, transformation, and power. And where Ruby Hill is the neighborhood that made that possible.
We create and produce high-quality, professionally crafted live theatre rooted in southwest Denver — amplifying the stories of Black, Indigenous, Latino/a/e, immigrant and refugee, LGBTQ+, disabled, and working-class communities.
Through evidence-based communication strategies and rigorous artistic craft, we develop the artists, build the audiences, and do the work that ensures those stories outlast any single performance.
Not a checklist.
A commitment.
RHP centers seven communities with equal structural weight throughout every document, every program, every governance decision, and every production. They are not a list to check off. They are the reason our organization exists. We seek to understand each community: its specific history of institutional harm, its cultural assets, its relationship to the others, and its presence in southwest Denver.
01Black & African American
Southwest Denver has a significant Black community with deep roots and a history of displacement. Black cultural expression in theatre has always been political — from the Harlem Renaissance to August Wilson to Steppenwolf's equity work. RHP honors that tradition and creates space for Black artists and audiences to see themselves centered, not just included.
02Indigenous & Native
Denver sits on the traditional homelands of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. Indigenous communities are among the most underrepresented in American theatre and among the most harmed by institutional extraction. RHP's centering of Indigenous communities is a reparative commitment, not a programming category.
03Latino/a/e
The majority population of Ruby Hill and southwest Denver. Includes multigenerational Chicano/a families, recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and U.S.-born Latinos who may not speak Spanish. The variation within this community is enormous, and RHP resists flattening it. This is also the founder's community.
04Immigrant & Refugee
Southwest Denver is home to significant Somali, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and other immigrant and refugee populations alongside the Latino immigrant community. These communities carry stories of displacement, survival, and belonging that American theatre has almost never told with accuracy or dignity.
05LGBTQ+
LGBTQ+ people exist within every other community RHP centers. The intersections — queer Latino youth, LGBTQ+ immigrants, Black trans folx, disabled queer people — are where the most urgent and underrepresented stories live. RHP's LGBTQ+ commitment is structural: reserved board seats, explicit affirmation in the Code of Conduct, and stories that center queer joy and complexity, not just queer struggle.
06Disabled
Disability, or other abilities, is a form of human diversity, not a deficit to overcome or a tragedy to depict. Disability arts — a field with its own history, aesthetics, and politics — is one of the most innovative spaces in contemporary performance. RHP builds access in from the beginning: open captioning as default, disability justice in production design, and disabled artists centered as creators, not subjects.
07Working-Class & Low-Income
Class is the most invisible identity in American cultural institutions. Theatre has a class problem: ticket prices, dress codes, downtown locations, and the cultural codes of "appropriate" audience behavior all function as exclusion mechanisms. RHP's sliding-scale pricing, neighborhood venues, and production aesthetics are explicit class politics.
The board &
the founder.
Joshua Caraballo, PsyD
Dr. Joshua Caraballo is the Founder of Ruby Hill Productions. A Latino professional, published memoirist, and community theatre actor, Joshua brings a rare combination of creative and research expertise to RHP: he holds a doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, an MFA in Motion Picture Producing, and a BA in Theatre Performance and has led research and evaluation work at the national level throughout his career. His approach at RHP is grounded in evidence-based communication strategies, pairing the power of storytelling with rigorous evaluation to build community, spark dialogue, and create lasting change.
As an actor, Joshua has performed with theatres across the Denver metro and south Florida areas, taking on roles ranging from comedy to drama. For Joshua, the stage is personal as well as professional — a belief that our stories are how we find our way to one another and create healing in the community.
Let's get to work!
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Spotlight
Naomi Umstot
“Change only happens when marginalized voices are seen and heard; Ruby Hill Productions is making sure this happens.”
Naomi works as an instructional designer at Denver Health and has held many various training and teaching roles. In her free time, she sings with Harmony: A Colorado Chorale and volunteers with various LGBTQIA+ organizations. She has served on Harmony's board as Parliamentarian, Secretary, and President and brings that experience to Ruby Hill Productions. Naomi lives in Aurora with her partner and their three fur babies.
Jacquelyn O'Brien
“Theatre tells the stories of our humanity, and we should be representing everyone's stories.”
Jacquelyn has loved the performing arts from a very young age and has been involved in the world of theatre in numerous ways, including co-founding and running a theatre company for two years in the rural mountains of Gilpin County, CO. She holds an MBA and is attuned to both the creative and business sides of making theatre magic happen. Recently, she entered the “empty nester” phase when her youngest of two daughters went off to college last fall. Jacquelyn currently works as an Events Coordinator for CU Boulder and loves spending her free time enjoying the great Colorado outdoors and supporting and working with local theatre companies.
Christopher Madsen
“To tell the stories of those who may feel they have no voice.”
Chris earned an MFA in playwriting from USC, where, after graduating, he stayed on as an Executive Assistant, teaching and producing for the school of theatre. He also produced and acted in the Los Angeles 88 seat theatre system. Most recently, his play At The Bottom, about the unhoused residents of a flop house, was produced by a theatre company in Salt Lake City. For the past 20 years Chris has worked as a social worker serving diverse populations such as children, hospitals, corrections, and now unhoused veterans.
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