At Circus Circus she is one of about a dozen acts which perform for an audience of passers-by every 30 minutes from 11:15 a.m. until midnight. It's a hectic stage some times and a lonely stage at other hours, surrounded by a midway of carnival games, with people milling around and standing at the rail watching.

 

"This is a great place to work," she said. "It teaches you to use your talent in any situation, whether the audience is good or bad. Sometimes they don't clap at all, and sometimes no one is there. But I try to treat each show like a dress rehearsal where the producer is watching me so I can do my best." .

 

Fourteen shows a week give her lots of experience, and the length of the engagement gives her time to work some new material into the act. "If I'm lucky enough to get the jobs I'll stay with it from now on," she said. "I love going out and performing. It's a good business to be in, and there are no other solo female jugglers out there working in the same market I am - casinos, theme parks, and places like that."

 

In 1986 at age 13 she did her first solo act, a "tennis" act that she worked on the S.S. Norway. Noelle would work as the opening act for the cruise director's show in the ship's lounge, while Dick appeared in the main theatre show. But that proved an anomaly, and she didn't work on her own again until recently.

 

Mostly, father and daughter combined their routines for a double act that they've been doing since 1988. They first worked as a team at Busch Garden in Florida. Dick did balls, then Noelle did scarves. Dick did rings, then Noelle did diabolo. Dick returned and they would do double diabolo, passing them back and forth, and throwing them up and changing places underneath them.  They also developed a half-hour long comedy show in mid 1990 in which Noelle was the straight man, and it ended up playing on the BBCs Paul Daniel's Magic Show, in France and in Japan.

 

When Dick was called to the Stardust Lido Show in Las Vegas in late 1990, Noelle wasn't part of the act, so she sat down to try to work out a saleable Vegas-style solo act. She and Dick decided she needed one more prop, and Noelle started practicing the devil stick for four hours a night. That, plus the hard work during her recent stay in the Bahamas, prepared her for the current engagement. Ultimately, though, she hopes to develop a comedy act just like her father has so that she can offer producers either a straight "flash" act or a talking comic routine.

 

Those who know both Dick and Noelle claim that they see a strong paternal influence in the daughter's performance. Noelle conceeds that point. "People say to me all the time, 'Oh, you look like your dad.' I don't think it's bad at all to be like him. just in the past year I realize how much he knows, and I wish I had listened to him more over the years. He's got a great act, I've been watching him for 16 years and he still amazes me and makes me laugh."

 

Her fascination with juggling is evident in early pictures of her holding up a spinning beach ball that her father placed on her finger. She first appeared in his act at age 3 in 1978 at the ABC Theatre in Blackpool, England. She wanted to be in the finale of the show so she could stand on stage with the Nolan Sisters singing act, four Irish girls whom she idolized. Dick told her that if she made a costume and learned a trick, he would let her do it at the end of his act and pay her for it. She practiced the beach ball spin and wanted to add a ring spinning on her arm. They practiced it on stage a couple of times, Dick added her to his show and Noelle's performance career began.

 

From the very beginning Dick wanted to teach her to manage her business affairs correctly. Before her first appearance, they wrote up a contract stipulating that she would earn five pounds sterling (about $12) for each show, with half the money going into the bank and half available to buy a doll she wanted. Every time she added a trick or improved her performance, she got a raise.

 

Dick gently cajoled her if she seemed to be faltering. He said, "If she didn't seem interested in getting a raise I would take her shopping so she could get her eye on something she wanted. She would ask how many shows she had to do to get it. I'd help her figure it up and she would get back to practicing and doing shows. This was a capitalistic approach to take with a young child, but a realistic one from which I believe she learned a valuable lesson on how the rest of the world works."

 

Dick said he had seen too many young people virtually "enslaved" to perform by parents who kept the proceeds, and he was determined that Noelle would be paid fairly for the work she did with him. Her bank account has grown as she earned more for performances.

 

When she got old enough to want a part­time job to make pocket money, Dick set up an apprenticeship program where she was paid for her practice time. He paid her slightly more than she would make on a part time job so that she would have an incentive to work at juggling rather than somewhere else. During the last five years she was also paid a salary to work for her father in the management of his career. She did office work, prepared mailings and videotapes, taped his act, repaired props, called cues and set up and packed his props. That work gave her experience in lighting, sound, stage hand and business management skills.

 

Besides performing, she has been involved with other juggling projects. She assisted Dick in publishing his two instructional books, and she assisted in the production of Stuart Lippes video on Bobby May, "A Great American Juggler." She has also recently begun her own collection of juggling paraphernalia, picking up items she feels are unique.

 

Noelle insists that her father didn't care whether she made a career of juggling, but he was going to make sure she at had an act in case she did. She said, "He wanted me to at least have something to fall back on, after that he didn't care if ! quit. I grumbled about it at the time, but now I'm glad he pushed me as hard as he did."