From Hollywood to Holy Scripture: YDS alum Kimberly Hill

Joy Meets Girl, a new play by Kimberly Hill ’00 M.A.R., is an upbeat romantic comedy set during the holiday season. In it, the main character searches for love and truth with just 20 minutes to spare before her wedding bells chime. But running beneath the fun and humor is a scriptural current drawn from 1 Peter 1:8: “Though you have not seen Christ, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” It’s something the audience will likely never pick up on—but that’s the point. 

“I try to write a play like a ride that runs on scriptural truth,” Hill says. “It’s not obviously discernable to the audience, but the idea is to illustrate how concepts from scripture might play out in our world. And, hopefully, fun is had by all.”

Raised on laughs

Growing up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Hill was immersed in storytelling and comedy from an early age. Encouraged by her mother to read the classics, she devoured novels by Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, and her favorite, Jane Austen. She was equally enamored with sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Get Smart. Through it all, she dreamed of becoming a writer. “I grew up in a family of humor, so it was natural that I wanted to make people laugh,” she recalls. “Even as a little kid, I saw how people liked that ray of happiness. We all need humor.” 

Because of her upbringing, she always imagined she’d be a fiction writer. But when she took her first teleplay writing class as an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University, she discovered a love for writing dialogue. “Once I found out I could write dialogue, I thought I’d try to write for a comedy series,” Hill says. “So I graduated, moved to Los Angeles, and started in Hollywood at the bottom.”

She moved in with a friend, slept on the floor, and started pounding the pavement. Soon, she was hired by Susan Harris as a production secretary on Soap, the Emmy-nominated comedy series Harris was showrunning at the time (Harris would later earn widespread acclaim as the creator and executive producer of The Golden Girls). “I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to television,” Hill says. “It was a top show on the air, and she’s one of the best writers anywhere.”

That job was the beginning of a career in television that included credits writing episodes for Cheers, Family Ties, Facts of Life, One Day at a Time, Empty Nest, and Lateline. Though the schedule was grueling—TV writers often rework scripts until the wee hours—it was a dream come true.

Finally, in her late 30s, Hill achieved her ultimate goal: she was days away from getting her own show on the air. Kate Capshaw led a cast that included Ellen DeGeneres and Christopher McDonald. All the sets were built. Then, the longest writers’ strike to date hit the industry, and lasted for months. “We lost everything,” she recalls. “I was so disappointed because I had poured my heart and soul into this project.” It was time for a change.

Chasing questions

After a decade writing in the pressure cooker of the Los Angeles television industry, Hill moved to New York City. “I always wanted to live there and I didn’t want to stop writing, but I wanted to focus more on theater,” she says. She had settled in and was working on a pilot when she received devastating news: her father had been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer. “At that point, my life changed,” she says, recalling how she dropped everything to be there for her family. The experience of caring for her father was deeply painful, but also profoundly spiritual.

Although she had been raised to attend church each Sunday and say her prayers, divinity wasn’t at the forefront of Hill’s thinking as a child or young adult. All that changed after her father’s death. She tried to write comedy but couldn’t escape the questions now permeating her mind: What is true, and who is God? “I couldn’t get past those questions, so even though it was a long shot—since I’d been out of school for many years at that point and never once had taken a theology, religion, or philosophy class—I decided to apply to divinity schools,” she says. “I figured that if I didn’t get in, which would probably be the case, I would lay it to rest and go back to writing.”

As it turned out, she earned acceptance into Yale Divinity School. At YDS, she knew she’d find a rigorous academic environment and people, ideas, and inspiration that could enrich her writing. “I went to divinity school to have something to write about,” she says. “I had been writing series, which was really fun, but I wanted to go deeper. And I wasn’t even sure what that was at that point.”

What she found at YDS was a total transformation—“a renewing of the mind,” she says, citing Romans 12:2. She dove headfirst into her coursework, including classes on the mystical theology of the West, literature and theology, theology and the law, and medical ethics. Along the way, she fell in love with scripture. “I had read the Bible before, but it didn’t take hold in me until brilliant Professor Brevard Childs’ class on the Old Testament,” she says. “I believe God broke through to me in that class. I was blown away by the truth in the scripture and by the genius of God’s word—spiritually, of course, first and foremost, but also as a writer. I was thrilled by it and continue to be thrilled by it.”

Writing the ride

Today, Hill’s approach to writing is still shaped by her time at YDS and beyond. “I realized there that I wanted to write about the intimacy and adventure of our wild and crazy relationship with God, and lace it with humor,” she says. For Hill, the humor in that relationship is found in humanity itself. “We’re all a little bit messed up, but we’re all trying,” she explains. “Much of comedy is based on misunderstanding, and it’s no secret that even people who try really hard to do the right thing don’t always have things work out the way they plan. Our relationship with God is fascinating and funny and powerful and deep, and I want my plays to be a fun ride where people experience a little lift but also have something to take home to chew on and explore.”

Melissa Kvidahl Reilly is a New Jersey-based writer and editor who specializes in higher education, religious education, and business-to-business subjects.