9/16/2021
Discovering The Smith Center
At 7 years old, Danise Payne decided she wanted to become an actress.
“Cicely Tyson was my hero, and I wanted to be just like her,” says Payne, an usher at The Smith Center since its opening in 2012 and among those returning to work for the center’s reopening.
Payne’s eventual career path, however, took a very different direction.
Following her performance in a children’s variety show at Fairytale Town, a child-friendly park in Sacramento, she was approached by an audience member who suggested an unusual career choice.
“She told me that I had great facial expressions, and asked me if I had ever thought about being a clown,” says Payne.
Initially put off by the idea, Payne soon decided that it could be “sheer fun.”
At 24 years old, she traveled to Oakland to audition for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, which trained clowns in the "Ringling style" from its 1968 founding until its 1997 closure.
Payne was selected and enrolled in the College’s eight-week program in Venice, Florida, where she says she studied 16 hours a day on most days.
“It was a very rigorous training program,” she recalls. “I learned that being a clown is fun, but it’s also hard work.”
Getting Her Start With The Greatest Show on Earth
Payne’s hard work paid off.
At a final presentation presided over by Irvin Feld, the owner of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Payne was one of only seven aspiring clowns chosen for the circuses’ touring Red Unit.
That marked the beginning of her 25-year circus career, which included performing for a variety of circus shows across multiple continents.
Payne toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey for two seasons. There she met and fell in love with one of the show musicians, whom she later married.
“I was so happy,” she remembers. “I thought I had found my corner of the sky.”
When her contract wasn’t renewed, Payne and her husband moved to Los Angeles to work for the L.A. Circus.
In subsequent years, Payne also worked with the George Coronas Circus in the Midwest and the Black production UniverSoul Big Top Circus headquartered in Atlanta.
When she signed a contract with Gerry Cottle's Circus in 1992, she became the first black female clown to work in a circus in Europe.
“You can say I definitely broke the mold with that job,” Payne says.
In 2002, a chance encounter with Irvin Feld’s son Kenneth led to a two-year return to touring with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
“So much had changed by then with computerized lighting and other new technology, but it was still as fun as it ever was,” she says.
A Life in Show Business
Payne joined The Smith Center as one of the center’s original ushers after seeing a billboard advertising the new venue ahead of its opening.
“I was employed at the time, but I still had a passion for being around show business,” she explains.
Payne was looking forward to getting her Smith Center 10-year service pin when the pandemic hit.
“The shutdown really caught everyone off guard,” she says, adding that she relied on Facebook to stay in touch with many of her Smith Center colleagues throughout the closure.
Today, Payne says she’s thrilled to come back and work for The Smith Center.
“The Smith Center offers the best theater anywhere in Southern Nevada,” she says. “It just means so much to me, as well as to the entire community.”