Meet Felt Nerdy | Veronica Dashiell and Charles Kelso

We had the good fortune of connecting with Felt Nerdy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Felt, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We’ve been performing as Felt Nerdy for about 13 years. For the first several years that we performed puppetry, we did so as a hobby. It was just for fun, and we would volunteer our performances for science fiction conventions across the southeast that did not have a budget for paid performers. As our abilities grew, so too did the size and complexity of our shows. After a time, we became comfortable asking for a fee for our performances. As that became more frequent, it simply made more sense to form a business entity.

We still perform for fun, but we are no longer bound by the financial burden of supporting the shows out of our own pockets.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Felt Nerdy is a bit unique in that we spend an equal time performing for family and adult audiences. In the early days, most of our shows were inspired by nerdy pop culture: Star Trek, Doctor Who, Stargate, Batman, etc. While that is still the base of our brand, we’ve expanded into creating children’s stories that appeal to a broader audience, such as The Magical Mr. E, a groovy retelling of Hansel and Gretel, or Heracles and the Lost Spectacles, which uses Greek myth to illustrate the adventure of reading.

We also perform rowdy puppet shows for adult audiences. We developed our unique blend of puppetry, burlesque, and risqué humor over several years as cast members and guest performers in puppet slams, burlesque shows, and variety shows before expanding into producing our own headlining shows at venues such as Dragon Con and Atlanta’s Red Light Cafe.

Self-promotion can be a challenge. A show of ours that has proven to be popular at a focused media convention like Dragon Con can struggle to attract an audience out in the “real world,” where there is a lot of competition for everyone’s time and attention.

We love allowing audience members to directly interact with the puppets after each of our shows. Whether they are getting a Vulcan neck pinch from Spock, being exterminated by a Dalek, or just wanting to get a photo or talk to the puppets. Kids and adults alike enjoy the opportunity to get up close and personal with the puppets!

We’re proud to say that we build our own puppets, some of which we’ve been using for over 10 years. We write our own scripts and create our own audio cues. Veronica also creates nerdy hand puppets and finger puppets that we sell at our shows.

Experience has taught us to be prepared and as self-sufficient as possible. It is better to arrive prepared than to have relied on someone else to provide a vital component or piece of equipment. Also, exercise self-care. Eat well, get plenty of rest, and be sure to stretch and warm up. A performer’s body is their instrument- take care of it.

We have a passion for sharing our love of culture with a variety of audiences through puppetry. We are privileged that audiences continue to support of and give us their support.

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?
We’ll always recommend the Center for Puppetry Arts as the first stop in Atlanta. In addition to a wonderful puppetry museum, they feature an amazing variety of shows and hands-on puppetry workshops. Red Light Cafe is a wonderful, intimate venue that has something going on every night of the week. If you happen to visit on the right weekend, you might even find us on stage! If you’re going to be in Atlanta during Labor Day weekend, then Dragon Con can be your one and only stop.

We love the art of live performance. Some of our favorite music venues include Blind Willie’s, Smith’s Olde Bar, Terminal West, and the Star Bar. For stage productions, we visit The Fabulous Fox Theatre on a monthly basis, after a quick meal at The Varsity. Both are historic Atlanta icons.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Beau Brown of Atlanta’s premier puppet slam, the Puckin Fuppet Show, where we first had the opportunity to perform puppetry for an audience. Eric L. Watts, of Treklanta, and R. Alan Siler, of Wholanta, were the first convention organizers to give us the opportunity to bring our brand of nerdy puppetry to the Atlanta area. Batsy Sinclair, a prolific burlesque and variety show producer based in the Atlanta area, allowed us to perform in our first burlesque show.

Website: https://www.feltnerdy.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feltnerdy/ AND https://www.instagram.com/feltnerdyanddirty/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FeltNerdy AND https://www.facebook.com/feltnerdyanddirty

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@feltnerdy AND https://www.youtube.com/@feltnerdyanddirty

Other: feltnerdy.bsky.social
feltnerdyanddirty.bsky.social

Image Credits
Charles Kelso and Veronica Dashiell