I have been at Bishop Manogue for three years, and for every year I have always done a performing arts class. The performing arts teacher is Kimberly Hilliard, who teaches six classes here at Manogue, choir, piano, music technology, and theater. Mrs Hilliard is located in the northern end of the building, across from the two art rooms. Her class is half full of pianos and assorted musical instruments. In one corner of the room there sits some multicolored plastic pipes, called boomwhackers. A semicircle of chairs ring the room around a large open area where performances happen. Behind that, a corner filled with enough stacked chairs to fill a small gym. Two adjacent rooms make up her office and recording studio. I interviewed her on her life story one afternoon during her 8th period, discussing where she came from and the influence music and theater had on her when she was a child.

Mrs Hilliard is originally from Covington, Louisiana and has three sisters. She went to a private catholic school from kindergarten to first grade. She became homeschooled after this she became homeschooled from third grade all the way through high school. Even though she was homeschooled, she still wanted to participate in theater productions and learn piano. Her mom was a piano teacher, which allowed for her to become a skilled pianist. She was able to perform in theater performances at the nearby catholic high school even though she was not actively going to the school. Once she entered high school, Kimberly began to take private piano lessons, making her a very adept pianist.
In her senior year of high school she went to NOCCA, or the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. NOCCA has created a lot of famous musical artists and actors such as Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Jon Batiste. She started out doing a summer program there and then went on to spend four years in their program. Mrs Hilliard also performed with a professional group of musicians from Baton Rouge. This musical group is known as BREVE, or the Baton Rouge Early Vocal Ensemble and still performs today. She traveled around Louisiana with twelve other musicians performing lesser-known pieces of music as well as medieval music. Besides a career in the performing arts, Mrs Hilliard considered veterinary medicine as an option. She worked as a vet technician for three years during high school. She also enjoys baking, and ran a baking business when she lived in Louisiana.

In her free time, Mrs Hilliard enjoys watching travel shows and exploring Nevada. She still likes to bake, you can see pictures of some of her cakes that she has made in this article. She also decided to apply and audition for the show Chopped, where contestants turn mystery ingredients into full three course meals. She applied and auditioned with her Dad, apparently it was for a father/daughter style episode. Today, she teaches six different classes at Bishop Manogue. I’m in her theater class, and have been for three years. So far, she has been the best theater and performing arts teacher I have had. She teaches us things like improvisation, audio design, radio show creation, and the technicalities behind designing dramas and plays. This year we put on “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” radio show. She has done several musicals at Bishop Manogue, her most recent one being “The Addams Family” which was performed last year. That musical was the first on She and Mr Rossolo, who was the assistant director, completed after the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, they aim to produce “Spamalot” which is based off of the cult classic movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. She and Mr Rossolo have maximized the use of the stage that we have here at Bishop Manogue. The stage is small, designed to fit into the wall in the small gym. The size and quality of the stage has not impacted the quality of the productions that are produced at Manogue. She also leads music ministry, which is for students who want to sing, play piano, and use their instruments during mass. It is always interesting to see the music ministry students performing during mass, they never fail at impressing everyone in the church.

Mrs Hilliard has shown all the traits that make a teacher great at Manogue. Not only is she skilled in piano, choir, and theater. She also teaches students leadership skills and helps make productions at Bishop Manogue not only possible but an excellent experience.