Katie Felton: Talk Softly and Carry a Big Shtick

The pan­dem­ic took (and con­tin­ues to take) a lot from us, but it also finds time now and again to give back. For exam­ple, this week I got to learn of the (appar­ent­ly famous?) ​“Butt Fum­ble”; that would like­ly nev­er have hap­pened if that rat-bas­tard COVID hadn’t also gift­ed us the source of said anec­dote, come­di­an Katie Felton. 

Host of the pop­u­lar and long-run­ning Lip Shtick Bat­tle show, the Orange Coun­ty native was born into a com­e­dy-lov­ing fam­i­ly. Felton’s dad was him­self an enthu­si­ast, regal­ing her with tales of Robin Williams and Jim Car­rey when he returned from nights out at the famous Com­e­dy Store. The appetite was teased even more as she was exposed to com­e­dy first­hand in expe­ri­ences like a show­case host­ed by her 8^th grade per­form­ing arts school. 

When the rub­ber (chick­en?) meets the road in ori­gin sto­ries like this, there are almost always a cou­ple of hur­dles for our pro­tag­o­nists to over­come: get­ting out of your shell, and get­ting in to the busi­ness. For the some­what soft-spo­ken (and end­less­ly nice) Fel­ton, both would prove a bit of a challenge.

“I always had dreams of try­ing com­e­dy, but nev­er real­ly thought I would do it”, Fel­ton admits. Nonethe­less, she took quite the big first step ear­ly, mov­ing to New York soon after col­lege, with an intent to work in adver­tis­ing. Thanks to a friend, liv­ing arrange­ments (one of NY’s biggest pain points) were made eas­i­er, but the cut­throat city can be rough on even the most accom­plished and hardi­est. Fel­ton real­ized ​“I need some­thing where peo­ple are a lit­tle bit nicer and I can have mon­ey to live my life”, and Austin in 2014 absolute­ly fit the bill. (We leave it to the read­er to deter­mine if it is still so.)

With the new locale, and a 30^th birth­day in the rearview, com­e­dy was still float­ing about in Felton’s mind, prompt­ing her to final­ly take the leap and try a class with Valerie Nies. That expe­ri­ence quick­ly led to the step­ping stone of open mics, and Felton’s dis­tinc­tive voice was start­ing to find its place.

Enter COVID, and exit the chance to per­form, at least in the tra­di­tion­al way. ​“I had one year under my belt and the pan­dem­ic shut every­thing down, and I was like…nobody will ever know me,” Fel­ton recalls. As we said, it taketh and giveth, and in this case, our online show­case Iso­la­tion Com­e­dy was born, and brought Fel­ton to our (and lov­ing audi­ences’) atten­tion. She imme­di­ate­ly became a staff and fan favorite, and we turned to her many a time to come back on the show.

Thank­ful­ly, the virus has start­ed to recede, and the Austin com­e­dy scene has returned with a vengeance, giv­ing Fel­ton the chance to con­tin­ue her jour­ney (and start new ones). ​“It was crazy to see the scene change, like, in front of my eyes…all the blos­som­ing,” she says of the scene’s growth. In addi­tion to being able to per­form again, Fel­ton took a new role work­ing at (reborn and Austin land­mark) Cap City Com­e­dy(https://​www​.capc​i​ty​com​e​dy​.com/). Fel­ton calls it basi­cal­ly a ​“mas­ter-class” oppor­tu­ni­ty, as she gets to see ​“true pro­fes­sion­als work on their craft”, turn­ing what seemed like a minor perk of the job into a major ​“bonus”.

Mean­while, Fel­ton con­tin­ues to hone her craft as well, in the afore­men­tioned Lip Shtick Bat­tle. Inspired by the mas­sive­ly suc­cess­ful musi­cal show God­damn Com­e­dy Jam, she want­ed to do some­thing with both music and cos­tum­ing, while acknowl­edg­ing that singing wasn’t ​“her thing”. Fel­ton bun­dled her unique take on the for­mu­la and shopped it around, and the show has been off and run­ning since Jan­u­ary. Bat­tle flows from 5 – 7 minute open­ing com­e­dy sets, judg­ing takes place, and the win­ners face off with Fel­ton in a lip-sync com­pe­ti­tion, with elab­o­rate dress wel­comed. Tri­umphant com­peti­tors have gone on to per­form in mul­ti­ple ​“Winner’s Cir­cle” edi­tions, with more planned in the future.

Look­ing to the future, Fel­ton is busy and primed for suc­cess. She’s look­ing for a co-host for Bat­tle, and is explor­ing fes­ti­vals. She has a grow­ing Tik­Tok fol­low­ing (and is toss­ing around a pod­cast con­cept based on the idea), and we urge you to go fol­low her forth­with. Of course, stage time is para­mount, and she’s always open to book­ing, jok­ing ​“If you think I’m fun­ny, reach out me!”. (Do that also, chop chop.) 

In a time where Austin is filled with new voic­es, Katie Fel­ton’s remains – son­i­cal­ly and top­i­cal­ly – unique. We can’t wait to keep hear­ing what she has to say (and lip-sync, and wear) under the lights. 

Fol­low Katie

• Insta­gram — @k8efelts
  
• Tik­Tok — @k8efelts

Fol­low Lip Shtick Battle

• Insta­gram — @lipshtickbattle

Katie can be seen and heard:

• Lip Shtick Bat­tle — 2^nd and 4^th Fri­days, 8pm at Last Stand Brew­ery SoCo