About Us

The Hearts and Noses Hospital Clown Troupe is specially trained to invite children into Clown World, providing relief for sick children and their families. While our visits are certainly entertaining, we clowns strive to do more.

As hospital clowns, we seek to uncover and cherish the hidden spirit of joy and creative energy that lives in the heart and soul of every child and those who love them, a spirit so often hidden away by the frightening experience of disease and disability.

The central goal of our clowns is to engage, empower and give choices to the children. This is an enormous gift to children, who seldom are given choices about their care in the hospital. We want to give the child the sense of controlling some aspect of their world.

From the first appearance of the clowns in the doorway of the child's room, things are different. The clowns always ask permission to visit a child. If the child’s answer is Yes, the clowns begin to connect with the child. We clown to the light behind the child’s eyes. Our clowning is sweet, gentle and age-appropriate for each child.

We want each child to feel that she has her own personal clown!


What We Do

In our type of clowning, the child is constantly engaged and empowered. We invite the child to make choices, to supply the magic word to do a magic trick, or to direct a “clown symphony.”

Our clowns offer silly improvised poems using the child's name, offer the child magical marionette strings to make a clown dance around, or sing the child’s favorite song.

As clowns, our main game is to have problems with every single thing we do. Obstacles are a clown’s delight. This also empowers the child because they tell us how to do it correctly! Our clowns learn over 60 playful routines and other shticks they can do with the children, but the real key to our way of clowning is to play together with the child in that silly-wonderful place, Clown World.

The family and friends love to see the child acting like a child again, and enjoying our wackiness. The whole family can forget any pain they might be feeling for a moment, and enter Clown World!

Begun in 1997, our Troupe now has 16 volunteers who are trained in doing improvisation-based, child-centered, hospital clowning. We have formed a special relationship with nationally-recognized Boston Medical Center where we clown several times a week. The Troupe also regularly visits the Franciscan Children’s Hospital, Spaulding Rehab, and participates in many related parties and events for children who are ill.