Kayla Knott has many ways to describe her work as a drag, burlesque, and cabaret emcee: Ringmaster of the titty circus. Wish.com Sabrina Carpenter. The MILF with the mic. The mother of dad jokes.
Professionally, though, Knott goes by Holly Pocket, a name inspired by the nostalgic, pastel Polly Pocket dolls from Mattel. As a performer, Knott considers her own act cabaret, without the striptease of traditional burlesque in her act, but she also has a drag character locked and loaded.
“His name is National Trevor,” Knott says. “He is from South Carolina. Great board shorts and one of those beer hats. We’ve all met Trevor, and I feel like I could really do something with that.”
Knott, who lives in Raleigh, has performed all over North Carolina, but most often performs via her production company, Pocket Nightmare. She founded Pocket Nightmare in 2023 with another performer, who goes by Nicolette Nightmare.
Knott and Nicolette Nightmare originally did most of their performances at Ruby Deluxe, which closed in May. She says that while the triangle scene is diverse, welcoming and fun, the landscape is shifting—some venues have closed, either permanently or for remodeling, and she says there are more producers and performers than opportunities.
Common performance venues include Legends, Pinhook, Chapel of Bones and The Fruit, and there are a variety of local performers and groups. For those looking to learn, the Raleigh School of Burlesque offers intensive classes, or “shimmy seminars.”
Though she considers herself a chameleon, matching the themes of the events she hosts, Knott’s own aesthetic has a Polly Pocket-like femininity. The burlesque performances, the night of our interview at Chapel of Bones in Raleigh, were 1980s hair metal themed, but Knott still wore sparkly, pink bow-shaped earrings along with her teased hair, blue eyeshadow, and fishnets.
Even so, she did the famous Napoleon Dynamite dance on stage while pregnant, is dressing as Austin Powers for an event this September, and stays open to new ideas.
“People have circled around how to define me for a long time,” says Knott, who has been an emcee for three years. “I’ve been called like so many different things to try to pinpoint what exactly it is that I do, but it’s really just dumb shit from a theater kid.”
A stay-at-home mother of three, Knott studied drama and psychology in college and briefly worked in mental health care. She says she brings those skills with her onto the stage.
Drag and burlesque in the Triangle
“Improvising on stage during a show where things can go wrong, where things change really quickly,” Knott says. “Something that I feel like I bring to the table is I learned how to crisis manage, put my head down, move forward with a smile on my face.”
And Knott has had to crisis manage through a variety of challenges from her place on stage, from wardrobe and set malfunctions to far-right provocateurs in the audience.
“I’m at the wheel of the boat,” Knott explains, “and all of the audience members are trying to get to a destination. And whatever happens during the show—waves, storms, dysentery, or whatever happens—I have to get the people to the place, so I will.”
Knott is a North Carolina girl, born and raised, and says she sometimes feels a little starstruck when performing at venues she looked up to as a child in Wake County. She recently hosted a showcase of burlesque through the decades at the Rialto Theater.
“It’s fun to be part of a community where I grew up and watched other people perform, especially performing at the Rialto when I was a theater kid and thought of the Rialto as a really cool, fancy place,” says Knott.
Knott loves to emcee because she is not only a performer but a fan of the performers she hypes up with a salacious dad joke or a cover of a thematic song.
“When we see [a performance] on stage, it’s a one-of-a-kind show,” says Knott. “It’s never gonna happen again. It’s the first time I’m seeing it, it’s the first time the other performers are seeing it, and it’s just, it’s a one-of-a-kind little art piece.”
Knott’s next performance is called “MILF Madness, the mother of all shows”. The poster features a heavily pregnant Holly Pocket in a gold crown. It will be on Aug. 1 at Cannonball Music Hall, and tickets are $20.
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