When Katherine Craft was in her 20s, she underwent a series of surgeries intended to improve her lifelong low vision. Instead, the procedures, in her words, “made everything worse.”
A few years later, Craft’s father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Both of these experiences informed the Austin-based screenwriter’s new Audible original project, “Shaky.”
The story follows Nicole, a 30-year-old drummer whose wild child lifestyle screeches to a halt after a shocking young onset Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Katherine Craft
“This story really was inspired by my own experiences with disability and then seeing my dad go through the same thing a few years later, realizing how much our experiences had in common in the way people reacted to us in some of the struggles that we faced,” Craft said.
“I really wanted to write something that spoke to that, that spoke to that in a way that is not inspirational – is not that like, ‘oh, everything’s fine, we can just overcome and get through it.’ But in a way that shows the messy, messy reality of it.”
Craft is a screenwriter and playwright, and she said writing an audio drama feels like a mix of both.
“’Shaky’ was originally written as a television pilot,” she said. “But when Sonoro, the production company, came on board, we worked really hard to make sure that it felt like it had been written for audio. They have incredible experience in Latin America, and now in the U.S., with producing audio content. So they were really able to help me make it feel like it was to be listened to as opposed to watched.”
Because the main character, Nicole, is a musician, Craft said the audio experience has a lot of musical components as well.
“I’m not a musician, but I love music. I love to sing. I love drumming, even though I cannot do it. So it was really great to be able to incorporate all of that into this audio format, like having a soundtrack that’s really drums-driven,” she said, “Because there’s a lot of different characters with different disabilities, different chronic illnesses in the show and to kind of give everyone their own little soundtrack as we introduce them.”
Craft said she was also determined to make “Shaky” feel like a Texas story. The series is set in Plano, not far from where Craft grew up in Dallas. She said she wanted to set the story in a version of Texas that she sees everyday but isn’t portrayed in the media often.
“A lot of the characters are inspired by people in my own family, in my own life, who break these stereotypes of like what what it means to be Texan, what it means to live in a red state, what it means to be Christian, what it means be a churchgoer,” she said.
“The character of Frank, who’s played by Sonny Carl Davis, is inspired by my dad. And I wanted a real Texan actor to bring that character to life. And I think just infusing it with my own lived experience. I’ve lived in this state almost my entire life. And I really love it and so I want to portray like a complex, complicated portrait of people who live here.”
Craft said she hopes “Shaky” gives audiences permission to embrace the messy parts of life.
“Our lives continue to shift as we get older. And I think I’d love for people to take away from this the permission to experience and embrace their own messiness sometimes,” she said.
“I think a lot of times we’re encouraged to keep everything really buttoned up – present a very positive, polished facade. And I think it gets really interesting, and we can form more genuine connections with each other when we’re able to let that go and talk to other people about what’s going wrong in our lives, and accept that.”
