When SMU alumna Truett Adams ’12 was working toward her bachelor of fine arts degree in theatre in SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, one of her professors noticed her talent as a movement artist. As she tells it, he looked her in straight in the eye and told her she should run away and join the circus. She didn’t run away, but she did join the circus. The Dallas Observer profiled Truett, part of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s latest show, Circus Xtreme, on August 11, 2016. The show wrapped up in Dallas over the weekend but continues at the Fort Worth Convention Center through August 21.
Dallas Observer
In one of the bar rooms at American Airlines Center, a pack of painted characters welcomes visitors to clown alley, where a red carpet leads to a couple of trunks topped with circus gear; there are wigs, shoes and one of those horned Viking helmets.
Among them is SMU grad Truett Adams, who sports bright blue overalls with matching shoes and hair. “With clowning, I make my own story,” she says of what led to her decision to take up the funny gig. “I play in my own universe.”
Adams is a full-time clown, but not the stereotypical kind you’d see at a birthday party or in a bad horror movie. There’s a real art to her craft. In comedy, the clown or “the fool” is an age-old profession and people have been enthralled by these characters for centuries. Even Shakespeare used clown-like characters in his plays. Queen Elizabeth always needed a good laugh.
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MORE ABOUT TRUETT ADAMS
The Dallas Morning News: Behind the greasepaint: Meet the Ringling Bros. clowns
NBC Channel 5: Ringling Bros. clowns come home to North Texas