Danae Hays Manifested Her Opry Debut—Now She’s Living Out Her Dream

On Tuesday, March 4, comedian Danae Hays fulfilled a lifelong dream when she stepped into the coveted circle at the Grand Ole Opry to make her Opry debut. 

“It is a dream come true,” Hays admits while chatting with Country Now backstage in her dressing room.

Almost two years ago, before she had even tried stand-up, she wrote down her dream of performing on the Opry stage. At the time, it felt like a long shot, but it’s as if she manifested it into reality.

“One of the things that I wrote down was I wanted to have a Grand Ole Opry debut for comedy.  And I was like, this is a big lofty goal for somebody that’s never done standup before. And then shortly after I started, I started doing stand-up, and then we went on tour,” she recalls. “And so it just feels very surreal. It feels very euphoric. It just feels like something that I’ve idolized in my head for so long is now minutes away.”

Danae Hays may have only been doing stand-up for a year, but she was born to entertain. Growing up in the small town of Morris, Alabama, she turned the world into her stage.

“I was using the living room, pool parties, the roller rink…Anytime I could get a crowd, I was working it,” she says. “And then finally I got enough courage to be like, ‘You know what? Why don’t we actually go and see if we can do comedy in front of people?’”  

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After deciding to take a leap of faith and try stand-up for the first time, Hays realized she wasn’t meant to take the traditional stand-up route. 

“I have characters that people have fallen in love with and that I love to do, and I have music. So I like to think of my show as a one woman show or a variety show where it’s southern storytelling, it’s music and its characters,” she explains. 

Danae Hays’ stand-up has been a huge success—her first tour is completely sold out, and more dates are in the works. However, fans can expect a slightly different experience on tour compared to her Opry performance, where she had to keep things a bit cleaner. She admits it was a “challenge” to adjust her show for the iconic stage.

“I’m not like an X-rated comic by any means, but I like to be colorful on stage and say whatever comes to mind. And I’ve had to remind myself, there’s a decorum here at the Opry and people bring their kids, and so we need to make sure that when they leave, it felt family friendly,” she shares. “But it was a challenge and it’s made me think of my set in a different light, and I love a good challenge.”

While working on her bit, she looked to her dad for his opinion on whether her jokes were suitable for the Opry stage.

“He gave me the thumbs up on a few. He gave me the thumbs down on a few too. So hopefully those don’t slip up and come out anyways,” she laughs. 

Her dad was in the audience, along with her stepmom, grandmother and a “ton of friends” when she stepped onto the stage. She said she managed to keep her emotions under wraps leading up to the show, but afterward, all bets were off. 

“My dad’s already cried several times and I’m like, ‘Dad, you can’t do it in front of me right now. I don’t know if this is waterproof mascara!’ I was like, ‘I got to be dialed in. Cry afterwards and we will go hit someplace up and we’ll cry together.”

Hays crushed her Opry debut, filling the pews with laughter with her signature humor. She delivered jokes about small-town life, growing up in church, and a hilarious take on genealogy, complete with a comedic song called “23 and Me.” It may have been her first time on the Opry stage, but it’s clear it won’t be her last.