Biography

Winnie Hiller has been coaching young actors most of her life. When she was only a teenager, she would coach all of her friends for the roles she thought they would be best for in their school productions. While still in college, she started several young peoples theater companies in Philadelphia and when she moved to New York in her early twenties she began directing workshops for teens all over the New York and New Jersey area.
She attended the USIU School of Performing Arts in San Diego and graduated from the masters program in opera performance at The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. She began her professional career as an opera singer, performing with the Philadelphia Opera Company as well as many other American companies, singing such roles as Suzuki in Madame Butterfly, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. She then moved to doing Broadway and touring companies in New York City and around the country. She also performed in many Shakespearean plays at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Connecticut as well as appearing in TV, films and over 150 television commercials. After spending many years as a performer, she decided to commit her life to teaching and raising a family.

Ms. Hiller has now been teaching professional actors and singers for almost 30 years. She ran a busy private acting school in New York City for 10 years, coaching professional actors of all ages. In 1990 she moved to Los Angeles where she continued to teach acting and voice. There she founded Hiller Academy where young professional actors could study arts-based academics as well as receiving intensive training in the performing arts. Ms. Hiller now specializes in coaching young professional actors in the Hollywood film and television industry. She prepares them for auditions and coaches them as they work on set. Five-year-old Conner Rayburn, just off the plane from his home in Tennessee, came to Winnie for coaching for his first audition in Hollywood. After several callbacks and lessons with Winnie, he booked a four-year place as a regular on the TV sitcom According to Jim starring Jim Belushi. He has gone on to appear in many hit TV shows and to play the young Dewey Cox in the motion picture ‘Walk Hard’. Her student, Doug Brochu was recently cast as a series regular on the new Disney channel show, ‘Sonny with a Chance’. Winnie is well known in Hollywood for helping children to become real actors rather than just ‘child actors’, teaching them skills they can utilize for a lifetime career. She also coaches up-and-coming recording artists in voice and stage performance techniques including Sacha Edwards, Victoria Huggins and the hot new rock band Rue Lynx. In 2008 Ms. Hiller founded a teen repertory troupe called ‘The Act-Teen Company’ based in Hollywood. This company serves to introduce the best new talent to the industry. They recently performed one of her original musicals ‘The Play’s the Thing, A modern musical Hamlet’ in which Ms. Hiller co-composed the music and wrote both book and lyrics. She also writes pop and rock songs for several of the performers she coaches.

Winnie is especially fond of conducting musical theater workshops. She introduces professional actors in Los Angeles and abroad to the world of musicals, singing and dancing. Her three-week summer workshops showcase some of Hollywood’s most talented children and teens in an original production that she writes specifically for them. Hollywood agents and casting directors look forward to attending her showcase performances each year to see what new talent she has discovered and developed. In her five-day European intensives, she works with actors, young and old, on songs and group numbers, which she then crafts into a show for the public. Last year audiences in Rome and Bilbao were thrilled with these exciting performances. Her 2009 summer schedule includes workshops in Madrid and San Sebastian, Spain. Winnie often assists her husband, acting coach Bernard Hiller, as he conducts his workshops worldwide. Both of their children, David and Dora Hiller are successful in the business as well.