Katherine Craft’s nine-part audio dramedy Shaky is a rock & roll ode to life’s white-knuckle rides. Centered on drummer Nicole’s fresh young-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis, the Audible Original series is an irreverent look at disability.
“We all go through times in our lives where we are unlikable and selfish and have a lot of shit going on, and I think that’s okay,” Craft says, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Especially for women, we’re socialized to put up a good front and handle things with grace, and think about other people’s needs, try not to be self-centered in any way. But grief and disability and life can all get really messy.”
Craft’s script was inspired, in part, by her father’s struggle with Parkinson’s, and by her experience with worsening low vision in her early 20s. After a series of corrective surgeries did irreversible damage, Craft found herself in a tailspin of frustration.
“That is what I wanted to explore with Nicole: a character who is furious. She’s making bad decisions, she’s acting out,” Craft explains. Forced to reassess her punk party girl lifestyle, Nicole moves back in with her mother and sister in Plano, where their attempts to help Nicole often drive her into further rage.
Parenthood actor Rosa Salazar brought Nicole’s voice to life, alongside Mayan Lopez – George Lopez’s actor/producer daughter – as her Type A sister Brianna. Puerto Rican entertainer Roselyn Sánchez takes on the caring-yet-exasperated role of their mother, Grace.
In Plano, Nicole finds troubled romance, riddling the plot with comical horniness. She also discovers a supportive cast of fellow musicians and other people living with Parkinson’s. Neighborhood news source and recumbent biker Frank is voiced by Sonny Carl Davis, of Seventies Austin fame. Frank’s character is inspired by Craft’s father, who brought gossip to his own friends from his own bike saddle. Cosmo, a trans country musician played by Hennessy Winkler, becomes another source of community for Nicole as she reimagines her drumming career.
Nicole scrappily claws her way to acceptance throughout the series, thanks in no small part to an outlaw Texan spirit in Craft herself and those around her. She grew up in Dallas and has spent the better part of this century in Austin, where she works as a screenwriting professor at UT.
“There’s still a lot of stereotypes about Texas and who lives here, and it being a red state,” she says. “I have always been a part of the leftist, liberal, queer, artsy communities working for change in the state, and we’re often overlooked in the bigger picture of Texas.”
This article appears in July 18 • 2025.