Hilary Chaplain has been recognized as one of 
America’s foremost professional physical comediennes, performing her original solo and ensemble work for over a decade throughout the US, Canada, South America and Europe. Uncovering the humor in everyday life, Hilary’s extraordinary work has won accolades worldwide. She is also a founding member of the New York Goofs (est.1998) appearing with them in prestigious New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, the American Museum of Natural History, Symphony Space, and on tour at Wolf Trap with Bob McGrath from Sesame Street.
Hilary is currently touring her award winning solo show A Life In Her Day. The show has recently been presented in Havana at Aquelarre 2006 (3 awards), Festclown in Brazil, at Carcajada 2005 in Buenos Aires, Clowns International in England (2 awards including the Grock d’Or from the Grockland Assoc.), Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, S.C., and Edgefest in Blue Lake CA. It has been performed to critical acclaim at the Faust Festival in Hong Kong, the Prague and Melbourne Fringe Festivals, the New York International Fringe Festival (where it won a Best of the Fest Solo Show Award), the East Coast Funny Women's Festival and the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival.
As a solo performer Hilary Chaplain has appeared at Anjos do Picadeiro and the FILO Festival in Brazil, the Atlanta Fool’s Festival, the Funny Women Festival in Chicago, the Crazy Women Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, PSNBC in New York City, Caroline’s Comedy Club, Surf Reality among others.
As an actress, Hilary was an original cast member in Bill Irwin's Largely/New York and appeared on Broadway and at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park as the Goddess Ceres in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of The Tempest directed by George C. Wolfe. Regionally, Hilary has worked with the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and with Israel Horowitz’s Gloucester Stage Company. She also played a featured role in the 1994 Oscar winning movie Forrest Gump, a lawyer on Law and Order Criminal Intent and made a special appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.
Hilary was an adjunct professor of clowning at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for eight years and has taught numerous workshops in clowning and physical comedy. Known as "Nurse Nice", she has been entertaining hospitalized children with the renowned Big Apple Circus Hospital Clown Program® (since 1987) and has been invited to teach Hospital Clowning internationally.
A graduate of Hampshire College with a BA in Theatre Arts, Hilary has also worked with such teaching greats as Tony Montanaro, Avner Eisenberg, Julie Goell, Philippe Gaulier, David Shiner, Dick Monday, Ami Hattab, Bob Berky and Bill Irwin, to develop her unique style of performance.
“Chaplain manages
to go beyond mere slapstick and develops a sympathetic character that the audience can latch on to.“
“It's a piece on human condition . . . It's about my struggle maintaining my dignity, and being taken seriously as a woman, while stumbling upon minor stumbling blocks and always coming out the winner.“
