Tracy Ann Chapel (SAG-AFTRA / AEA) is a Los Angeles-based actor and filmmaker, whose career includes a variety of roles in film, as well as stage productions, web series, television, voice-overs, and dance. She is also a skilled vocalist, stand-up, and clown.

Chapel was asked by producer Christopher Nibley to be the lead actress, writer and director for the short film, Cherzoso The Silent Film, which was nominated for Best Short International film at the 2019 Olympus Film Festival, reviewed in 2020 on Rotten Tomatoes, and showing in distribution on Amazon Prime Video, Hyvio, Sofy.tv, and others in the United States and internationally. The short is a companion to 2019’s Noir Pillow Talk Murder in which she also starred.

Other short films include Somewhere Poppies Can Grow (2018) where Chapel traveled to San Francisco for a dramatic co-starring role after the Director saw her 2018 television interview as “Giggles” the clown. Self-starting shorts as actress, writer and director include Marabou Feathers (2019), and The Funeral Clown’s Dream (2019). Chapel won the Best Actress and Iconic Femme Fatale Award at the 2019 L.A. Neo Noir Novel, Film, and Script Festival for her starring role as “Shelly” in Noir Pillow Talk Murder (2019).

For The Funeral Clown’s Dream (Short 2019), Chapel received the following awards and nominations: Best Short Narrative Nomination (2020), Dumbo Film Festival; Special Mention Winner September (2019), Global Shorts; and Special Mention Winner December (2019) in the One-Reeler Short Film Competition. Marabou Feathers (Short 2019), was Special Mention Winner (2019) in the One-Reeler Short Film Competition; and Vegas Movie Award Best Short Film Nominee (2019) in the Vegas Movie Awards.

Her on-screen work includes roles in feature film Janked, and in Nick Brokaw’s award-winning western short film Four Winds, both of which were screened at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Chapel got her SAG card while working on the role of the popcorn vendor in Angels in the Outfield (1994), which ended up on the cutting room floor. Other notable work includes as “Laura” the victim in the Dick Wolf-inspired web series Cop Shows Anonymous (2011), and as Nicole Kidman’s stand-by for the feature film Hemingway and Gelhorn (2012). She was also a featured stand-up comedian in the video Telling Jokes for Italy screened at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics.

Chapel was born in San Jose, California, and is of Welsh, German, Irish, and French descent. She first became involved in theater arts as a costumer and worked as an actress and model in high school and community theater. She has performed as lead dancer for Almenrausch Schuhplattler, and dancer for Ballet Russe and Russian dance troops from San Francisco, California. She has danced at venues in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and on cruise ships in North and South America.

Chapel studied at The American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco, the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, and the John Sarno Studio in Hollywood, California and continues to study privately, with an acting coach and director, Tracy Lynch Britton in Los Angeles. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Filmmaking and an M.A. in Communications from Grand Canyon University.

Chapel was given her professional start performing on stage as the Contra-Auguste clown Giggles, and the white face clown Cici. She has additionally been cast in lead theatrical stage roles, such as Ann Deever in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons; Rosalind Hay in Ken Ludwig’s Moon Over Buffalo; and Beatrice Vecchio in Rene Taylor and Joseph Bologna’s Lovers and Other Strangers.

Chapel is currently set to direct, Krishna and Ali, a short film screenplay that is scheduled for production in 2024.

Training:
BA in Filmmaking and MA in Communications from Grand Canyon University
AS in Culinary Arts from Culinary School at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts
San Francisco School of Circus Arts
The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco — A.C.T.