The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project

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Part of Interview with Kimberly Sorensen, Thursday, May 5, 2022

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Interview with Kimberly Sorensen
Thursday, May 5, 2022
The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project
Recorded in person at the Pittsford Community Library, Pittsford, NY
Interviewee: Kimberly Sorensen
Interviewer: Daniel Gorman Jr.
Questions developed by: Trevor Kamen and Joshua Kanofsky
Duration: 19:25
Transcription App: Otter.ai
Transcript
Note: Trevor Kamen and Joshua Kanofsky were initially slated to record the interview
with Kim Sorensen. Due to scheduling conflicts, Dan Gorman ultimately conducted the
interview.

[00:00]
Dan Gorman
Alright, today is Thursday, May 5, 2022. This is Dan Gorman, and I’m talking to Kim Sorenson.
Thank you for joining me after some technical snafus to talk a little bit about your experiences
working at the Hill Cumorah Pageant. To begin, one of the questions we’ve been asking
everyone as a matter of demographics is, did you convert to the Church, or did you grow up in
it?
Kim Sorensen
I am a convert to the Church. I was baptized in 1995 up in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario,
Canada.
Dan Gorman
Okay, and if you don’t mind me asking, did you have a religious affiliation previously?
Kim Sorensen

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You mean with the Church or—
Dan Gorman
Oh, just in general?
Kim Sorensen
Yeah, growing up, my family went to church, but not that Church.
Dan Gorman
Okay.
Kim Sorensen
Not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, no.
Dan Gorman
Okay. And then, how long have you been down here in the States?
Kim Sorensen
Since 2000.
Dan Gorman
Okay. And based on the initial information that was sent to me, you worked in costuming,
specifically on wigs for the Pageant, correct?
Kim Sorensen
Yes.
Dan Gorman
Did you have, before you worked on the Pageant, any background with theatre costume work?
Anything related to that?
Kim Sorensen
No, I had no—[laughs]. It was kind of like on-the-job training that was...

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Dan Gorman
So, I suppose the better question, or the bigger question, to take a step back, is how did you get
roped into this in the first place? How did you first hear about the Hill Cumorah Pageant?
Kim Sorensen
Well, when I joined the Church, I had come down, I think once or twice, when I lived in Canada.
And then, when I moved down here, I actually lived in Palmyra, so we went every year from,
like, 2000 on. Then, when I—when we had kids, the kids wanted to go every night, so we
probably went every night for many years. [laughs] And I don’t look at it as being roped into.
[laughs]
Dan Gorman
That was perhaps a bad choice of words. But just from speaking to some of the other people on
the project, who’ve talked about [the fact that] this would be a significant amount of work for
people who live locally every year...
Kim Sorensen
Well, I was a stay-at-home mom for a while, and that enabled us to go over all the time. I was—
the kids and I were on—were in Pageant in 2015, and then, in 2—I think it was June—May—
end of May or June of 2017, a friend of mine, Katie Maxwell—she was already in wigs—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
And the lady that was supposed to work with her had gotten sick, so she couldn’t come, so Patti
Randall is asking her, “Who can we get to come in and help? Because you need someone else in
there.” And that’s basically how I got in, was through Katie Maxwell.

4
Dan Gorman
So, this was entirely word of mouth.
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
You know, it’s funny—this is an aside—but this is actually the first interview for the project I’ve
done in person, not over a computer. So, it’s a little different to actually be facing someone faceto-face. I’m used to having a question document next to me. Um... one moment... [scrolls
through the questions document on his computer] Because, originally, you were supposed to
speak with two students, and I have their notes here, so I’m putting them here—
Kim Sorensen
That’s fine.
Dan Gorman
As a reference.
Kim Sorensen
And I work in a school district, so I have summers off, so there’s never—
Dan Gorman
Oh, perfect.
Kim Sorensen
An issue. And my kids are always excited, you know, “Oh, we have the whole month where
we’re just gonna be doing Pageant stuff? This is awesome!” So...
Dan Gorman
Were you still living in Palmyra at that point?

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Kim Sorensen
No, I was in Fairport—um, Pittsford.
Dan Gorman
The reason I ask is, I was curious if you were commuting from home every day, or if you ever
camped, actually, there or in the dormitories at FLCC [Finger Lakes Community College].
Kim Sorensen
No, we commuted from home every day.
Dan Gorman
Okay. Did your students—[laughs] Your students. I’m sorry... [corrects self] Did your children
(or students)—
[Kim laughs]
Dan Gorman
Did they ever—were they ever jealous of students who got to camp out at the site? I’ve heard
stories about, you know, ice cream socials and things that would go on at night.
Kim Sorensen
I don’t think so. They just they were glad they could go home in their own bed. [laughs]
Dan Gorman
That’s understandable.
Kim Sorensen
And their own shower.
Dan Gorman

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So, what were the logistics involved in your job? So, you were working with wigs, and as you
said, you hadn’t had a background in costuming.
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
What kind of training did you have to do before the Pageant to do your work during it?
Kim Sorensen
Katie Maxwell—I’ll just refer to her as Katie—she and I would open up the entire room. There
was two sides of them the room; it was wigs, and there was costumes, and there was a —just a
door in-between. And so, we would go up and open up everything. The training was like—it was
kind of like on-the-job training for me.
Dan Gorman
So, you were really thrown into it.
Kim Sorensen
Katie would say, “Hey, you know, this is how we’re gonna do it,” and I’m like, “Perfect.” You
know, I’m pretty—I can catch on to things pretty easy. It wasn’t—you know— It’s not like I’m
operating or anything [laughs] like that, but [5:00] you know... Yeah, I had no experience with
wigs at all, and—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
Katie helped me out a lot.
Dan Gorman

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Some of the people who worked on the Pageant have described being officially “called.” Was
your work described as a calling, or was it—
Kim Sorensen
[in the affirmative] Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
More of a—? It was. Okay.
Kim Sorensen
Yeah.
Dan Gorman
I was wondering if it was more of an ad hoc [arrangement]. Well, maybe you could talk about
that a little more. Who makes these decisions, and what roles at the Pageant are considered
callings as opposed to just, sort of, a regular service job?
Kim Sorensen
It’s to my understanding that we’re all called—
Dan Gorman
Mmm.
Kim Sorensen
That it’s all a calling.
Dan Gorman
Okay, I wasn’t sure if that only applied to people in leadership positions or how that worked.
Kim Sorensen
Hmm, that’s a good question. Because I know, when we’re at Pageant, we were all set apart as
missionaries, and—

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Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
You know, this is going to be our work that we’re going to do.
Dan Gorman
That’s interesting. I’m trying to see what else the students wrote here on the question sheet.
[laughs] What would you say was the most difficult aspect of your job working on the Pageant?
Kim Sorensen
Probably the late nights and early mornings.
[laughter]
Dan Gorman
So, did you have to be on-site pretty much all day?
Kim Sorensen
Yes, mhmm. So, we’d get there about 7:30, 8 o’clock, maybe? And we would be there, like, till
11:30 at night, 12 sometimes, yeah.
Dan Gorman
And then, specifically with working with the wigs, can you talk about what a sort of typical day
on the Hill would look like for you?
Kim Sorensen
Sure. We’d get in there in the morning, and the girls who had wore the wigs, they’d have them
all on the headstands. So, we’d come in, and we’d have to brush—comb and brush ‘em all out so
that they’d look nice for the next day’s performance, and that probably took—you know, it
probably... The two of us. Sometimes there were more people, like some people always, you

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know, maybe just came over and helped us from the other side; there were two ladies. So, we
would do that. First, we’d have devotional, and then we’d go back. We’d go to a meeting, kind
of figure out with Patty Randall, which—I think somebody interviewed her.
Dan Gorman
Right. Yes. And she kind of gave us the logistics for the day. And then we’d go to our rooms,
and we’d work on the wigs, combing them out, just kind of seeing if any of them got slightly
damaged. Like, there was a time—there’s a scene where there’s, like, a fire scene, and one of the
girls hair was [laughs] a little singed. It was basically—yeah, brushing the wigs out, just
checking them, any accessories that they had—we wanted to make sure that they were all set to
go because some of them wore, like, headdresses and stuff like that. There was always laundry to
fold. Yeah, and then we’d just help out wherever else they needed help in the Pageant. I saw the
Pageant three times, and—obviously, the audience sits back in the bowl, away from the stage.
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
It wasn’t easy for me to tell how many actors had wigs compared to natural hair. Do you have a
sense of how many wigs you were responsible for?
Kim Sorensen
Hmm...
Dan Gorman
Just a ballpark figure.
Kim Sorensen
Probably—let me think. Six... twelve... I would have to say about 40, maybe 30 or 40.

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Dan Gorman
And I’m assuming these would have been for primary roles like King Noah [and] Abinadi?
Kim Sorensen
No, that was all upstairs because there was—we were in the women’s wigs.
Dan Gorman
Oh, I see.
Kim Sorensen
Upstairs was the wigs and beards and then the men’s dressing room. There were several dressing
rooms. I think it was like [counts quietly] one, two, three, four, five, six—like there were seven
or eight, probably, dressing rooms, and we were in the one lower dressing room.
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. So, you were working with women’s wigs, specifically.
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm. Yep.
Dan Gorman
And then, within that, I’m curious, was it mostly for adults, or did the children have any special
costuming or wigs?
Kim Sorensen
We were just with adult—like, some of the youth, maybe, were there, like probably 14 and up.
[indistinct]
Dan Gorman
But not—no one [in] Primary?
Kim Sorensen

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No, no, only if, like, a mother was there and she needed to have her daughter with her to change,
or something, and— Stuff like that. We did have the angels. That’s who we did have, if you
wanted to know [laughing] who we had. We had the angel wigs. [laughs]
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. From the—do you mean from the beginning [of the Pageant], with the trumpets?
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
The opening fanfare?
Kim Sorensen
Yeah. Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
Yeah, we spoke to—several of my students spoke to Bryan Bywater, who had worked on props
for a while—
Kim Sorensen
Yeah.
Dan Gorman
And he mentioned how the trumpets were all made of PVC piping, not metal. [laughs]
Kim Sorensen
Yeah. Well, I think the practice ones are PVC. Some of them were—hmm—not to—I can’t
remember now.
Dan Gorman
I just remember him saying that, from a distance, you can’t tell. [laughs]

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Kim Sorensen
No, you can’t, no. Yeah, they’re not—yeah. Oh, he’s right. He’s the prop guy. [laughs]
Dan Gorman
During the performances—now, I know for some of the prop people, they would have to be
backstage [10:00] if there had to be a quick repair. Was that—this—also true for people in
costuming and wigs?
Kim Sorensen
They would come to the dressing room. If anything went wrong, they came back to the dressing
room. So, you would have to be on call, in other words? Yeah, we just stayed in the dressing
room the whole time during Pageant. There was a TV; we could see what scene was on and
when the girls are going back. There was—sometimes, we had girls that would come; they’d be
in two scenes, like almost back-to-back, so they would be running down, quick change, and back
out again.
Dan Gorman
Okay. And did you ever have to make mid-show repairs?
Kim Sorensen
To the wigs?
Dan Gorman
Yes.
Kim Sorensen
No. Costumes? Yes, I know they did.
Dan Gorman
You had also mentioned how Katie Maxwell was instrumental in—

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Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
You know, bringing you onto the job and to—showing you what to do. Were there any other
pointers or guides that they had, or was it entirely word-of-mouth? Was there anything written
out that you had to study, a manual or anything?
Kim Sorensen
They did have binders, and it had all the costumes, like, what they were supposed to look like.
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
You know, the headdresses. They had wrist things and anklets, and some had beaded... There
was a—yeah, there were—there was a binder for wigs and a binder for costumes, and we just—
we had them both so we could look at them—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
And see.
Dan Gorman
And then, can you recall any—well—unusual or memorable things that happened during a
performance, at least in your department?
Kim Sorensen
Hmm.

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Dan Gorman
Or interesting; doesn’t have to necessarily be negative. But any nights that stand out to you.
Kim Sorensen
I just remember every night, with the trumpeters, like at the end, because they would be in the
destruction scene. And they had all the little Primary kids, and they had to run every night, I
remember, and we would time it. Okay, three—they had to be back out there, I think, in, like,
four minutes or something; they had to come down, change out of their clothes, put the
trumpeters—like, the angels—on, and then run back up. And I remember how chaotic that was
every night. [laughs] But it was fine, you know. It wasn’t—and they all made it there every
night. Every single night. There wasn’t one that was lagging back. They all made it there. So,
that, to me, was, like, “Wow.”
Dan Gorman
And then, you mentioned—obviously, you were working on wigs, but how much interaction did
you have with people working on other aspects of costume design? For instance, I know there
was a pretty large sewing/seamstress shop on-site.
Kim Sorensen
I wasn’t down—I really didn’t have much to do with that. Because we were—the way our
building was, like, we were in one building, and then there was the Hill—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
And then they were over there, on the side. So, I really—like, I might have been down there to
get, maybe, supplies to sew beads for the braids the girls might have—

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Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
To wear, or if they needed any help doing stuff, we would go down. But as [in] the sewing part
of it, I did not partake; I didn’t do any of the sewing.
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. Shifting gears a little bit, the Pageant depicts 10 (approximately) sequences from the
Book of Mormon. Were there any portions of the plot that resonated particularly with you?
Kim Sorensen
Hmm. Obviously, when Christ ascends. I think that’s probably—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
What everybody has said.
Dan Gorman
You could say it again. That’s fine.
Kim Sorensen
That’s probably the one that really resonates with me, because I always think, “Wow, this is
what it’s gonna be like when he does come. And I want to make sure I’m there. I want to make
sure I’m ready.”
Dan Gorman
A related question is, are there any parts of the Book of Mormon that weren’t put in the Pageant
that you wish had been? Any stories—

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Kim Sorensen
Hmm.
Dan Gorman
You would have liked to have seen featured.
Kim Sorensen
Hmm. I can’t... That would be a very long Pageant.
[laughter]
Kim Sorensen
Well, I think they did a good job. Yeah, no, I’m good. I’m good with, you know, everything [in
the Pageant].
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. And looking back now, the way the Pageant ended was obviously quite abrupt. The
pandemic prevented the final performances.
Kim Sorensen
Mhmm.
Dan Gorman
Were you involved with the dispersal of all the Pageant materials?
Kim Sorensen
Yes.
Dan Gorman
Could you talk about that a little bit?
Kim Sorensen

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I was the one [laughs]. Because I was the only one that lived locally, I had to... Like I said, there
was two, four, six—like, eight dressing rooms, and we had to bring everything from those eight
dressing rooms to one dressing room, so we had, like, over a thousand costumes in this one
room. And—because [15:00] I was the only one local—they kind of asked me if I would help
disperse all the costumes, because some of them went to Nauvoo; some of them went to Arizona.
Some of them to the—I think Albany history has—a history museum in Albany—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
I think. I think they have some. So, it was a big undertaking. And I was—I feel really blessed
because I think that brought closure for my girls and I to be part of that, you know, [to] be able to
pack stuff up. And it was a good closure for me, where I don’t think a lot of people got that.
[indistinct]
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. When you say “girls,” do you mean your coworkers?
Kim Sorensen
My—no, my two girls.
Dan Gorman
Okay. [laughs]
Kim Sorensen
Sorry, my two girls, Rachel and Julia. [laughs]
Dan Gorman
No, I figured I should clarify. [laughs]

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Kim Sorensen
Yeah. Yeah, ’cause, I mean—it was lucky for them, because they only went to school every
other day, so they could come out and help me.
Dan Gorman
Mhmm. This was last summer, ’21?
Kim Sorensen
Mmm.... It started in April—I think April ’21, we started? April or May ’21, yeah. It was just—it
was—you know, and I had to have everything organized because, then—did you talk to Chris
Bjorling at all?
Dan Gorman
We did.
Kim Sorensen
Yeah, so he would bring people in—I’m sure he told you he brought people in—to look at the
costumes and stuff like that, local theater groups, and—so it was just managing to keep
everything separate and organized—
Dan Gorman
Mhmm.
Kim Sorensen
and everything. It was quite a chore [laughing], but it was like a—it was good closure for me,
and I don’t think a lot of people got that closure, and I feel really bad that they didn’t.
Dan Gorman
Looking back now, what do you find the most meaningful part of the experience—the
relationships? The uniqueness of the work you were doing? Something else?

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Kim Sorensen
I would say the relationships and knowing that I was involved in something that, you know,
thousands of people came to see, and it might touch one of their hearts, that they might, you
know, read the Book of Mormon, you know, join the Church. I think that was it, that knowing
that, while we might just have the thousands of people that come through every night, there
might just be one that we reach. And that was important to me, that even it’s just that one, it
doesn’t matter, you know. We’ve got, you know, somebody who’s come back or come to us.
Dan Gorman
The last question I have is a silly one. We’ve heard from Patricia Randall and some others that
there were frequent runs to Chill & Grill for ice cream and fast food, so I was curious if that
extended to the wig department—
[Kim laughs]
Dan Gorman
As well as costumes.
Kim Sorensen
Well, the four of us—there was Yvette Sampson, Nancy Osbourne, Katie, and myself. We
probably brought more snacks in [laughs]—like just from, you know, chocolates and chips,
[laughs] just things like that. We didn’t go on as many ice cream runs. We may have—I know
Katie and I took our—because Katie had her kids in Pageant, too—we may have taken our kids
to Chill & Grill. But we didn’t go with the staff because we kind of just brought stuff in. We
were always, like, busy all day doing stuff. So, we didn’t—we did go to Chill & Grill, pobably
more so with our kids and the family than with a lot of the staff.
Dan Gorman

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And I will say [that], after listening to a bunch of these interviews, I didn’t appreciate (before I
began this project) just how much of a summer camp feeling there was, in some ways, at the
Pageant.
Kim Sorensen
Yeah. It was. The—my kids loved it. They loved it because, when they were there, everybody
had the same morals, the same standards. There wasn’t gonna be any drinking. There wasn’t
going to be any drugs. You didn’t have to worry about anything like that. It’s a nice—it’s a good
family atmosphere, definitely.
Dan Gorman
Well, I think that’s all the questions I have. Thank you so much for meeting with me—
Kim Sorensen
Yes [best guess]!
Dan Gorman
And for putting up with my Zoom mishaps yesterday.
Kim Sorensen
That’s okay. I’m glad I can help.

Dublin Core Metadata for the Interview
Title: Interview with Kimberly Sorensen, Thursday, May 5, 2022
Subject: Hill Cumorah Pageant, Costumes, Wigs, Family, Canada, Christ, Angels
Description: Kimberly Sorensen is a Canadian immigrant and convert to the LDS Church. She
attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant many times with her children in the 2000s–2010s. In 2015,
she was called to assist with the wig shop for the Pageant. Kimberly had no prior experience with
wig making, but she learned on the job under the supervision of her colleague Katie Maxwell.
During this interview, Kimberly recalls the workflow in the wig shop, her children’s
participation in the Pageant, and memories from performance nights. She also comments briefly

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on the Pageant dispersal process in spring and summer 2021, when all the props and costumes
were given away.
Creator: Kimberly Sorensen and Daniel Gorman Jr.
Source: The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Contributor: Daniel Gorman Jr.
Rights: Produced under an oral history collaborative deed of gift agreement with no restrictions
and nonexclusive license.
Format: WAV (audio; original), MP3 (audio; converted), PDF (transcript)
Language: English
Identifier:
• Gorman_KimberlySorensenInterview_Computer_Copy_05-05-2022.wav
• Gorman_KimberlySorensenInterview_Computer_Copy_05-05-2022.mp3
• Gorman_KimSorensenTranscript_05-05-2022.pdf