Meet Douglas and Dewey McGeoch | Comedy Drag Duo

We had the good fortune of connecting with Douglas and Dewey McGeoch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Douglas and Dewey, how do you think about risk?
Douglas and I thrive on taking risks. Experience has shown us that there is a payoff when you possess a willingness to fail. We understand that not everything we create will resonate with our audiences, but we know that we will learn something valuable in the process, even if the idea “fails,” and that we will walk away with information that we did not have before.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Olive d’Nightlife and Agatha Boogie were born from many years of trial and error as comedic stage performers. Over the past nineteen years that we’ve been performing together, our characters have changed and evolved dramatically. Both of us come from a background as actors for the Walt Disney Company. Dewey, in particular, performed as a comedian for Disney for 23 years. Douglas began his career portraying Goofy at the Magic Kingdom while Dewey performed on the streets of the Disney MGM Studios, beginning his Disney acting career as a Jim Carrey lookalike in 1996. The experience of day-to-day performance offered both of us a solid foundation that helped us tremendously after we met in 2005 and began performing together as a comedy duo.

We built Douglas Dewey Creative through years of hard decisions that many people might have considered reckless. We chose to give up the security of our acting jobs at Disney to move to New York City to further pursue our goals as a comedy duo. We did well for six years in Manhattan, but chose to relocate to Atlanta in 2018 in search of a more balanced work-life situation. It was a huge risk to take considering the contacts and momentum we’d achieved in New York at the time. But, we knew we wanted something different than what the grind of New York City living required of us.

Olive and Agatha were reborn because of our decision to move to Atlanta. We were forced to start from nothing and rebuild the characters from the ground up. We even changed their names and their overall looks. This was the best decision we could have made. It has taken more than six years to find our footing here in Atlanta, but we are enjoying the challenge of letting Atlanta know that Olive and Agatha are here.

We pride ourselves upon being a unique type of drag. Our shows, as one fan put it to us, “Are like watching two close friends have a conversation in their living room.” Basically, we bring to the stage the love and the respect we have for one another in our private lives through Olive and Agatha, and that is what we think our fans respond to. The authenticity of Olive and Agatha shines through.

As far as lessons learned, the biggest one we experienced was to look hard at ourselves and at our lives and to really decide together what “Enough” looks like. In the entertainment business performers can easily get caught up in chasing fame and fortune as the end goal. This is especially true in the current “Rupaul’s Drag Race” climate. However, we have chosen to go a bit slower, enjoy the journey, enjoy the process of creating together, rather than to focus upon any desired outcome. We believe that the only thing that truly exists is the moment that we are in, and we strive to enoy these moments together while they are happening.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
When friends visit us we take them to Red’s Beer Garden. This is our “third place” in Atlanta. We also enjoy taking them north to visit the Georgia mountains. Ellijay, the waterfalls, the wineries for the views. We’d also take them to see a play at Actor’s Express. That theater produces some of the best theater we’ve seen in Atlanta to date.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We know that success cannot be achieved in a vacuum. It takes the efforts of many people to make Olive and Agatha look as good as they do. Most prominently, we have been blessed to collaborate with Kristen (“Red”) and Ed Sumpter, owners of Red’s Beer Garden in Benteen Park. By welcoming us in to produce shows and events at their venue, Red and Ed have supported Olive and Agatha in ways that have bolstered our presence here in town.

Website: https://www.oliveandagath.com

Instagram: @oliveandagatha

Facebook: Douglas Dewey Creative

Image Credits
All photos property of Douglas Dewey Creative, LLC