Alison Stevenson Works Through Family Drama In Audible’s Like Mother

In recent years, scripted podcasts have become increasingly popular. These podcasts are reminiscent of old school radio plays, with multiple voice actors reading scripts to tell the story. Alison Stevenson’s new Audible Original, Like Mother, hopes to be the next big scripted podcast. The new podcast is currently in the Top 20 on Audible and features Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman and Adult Swim’s The Perfect Women, Vice author, and series creator, Stevenson herself.

Stevenson has wanted to write about her relationship with her mother for some years. “It has always been in the back of my mind, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” she says. She ended up pitching the project to a friend who worked at Audible and started an over a year process of writing the script for the podcast. The dark-comedy podcast follows a fictionalized version of Stevenson and her mother as they navigate living together and issues around relationships, life goals, and body image.

“It was almost like therapy. I was working through my own real issues while I was writing it. Questions like, What do I really believe, what do I really feel is the right path in life and what do I really want?” she says. 

The process of writing a script for a podcast was new for Stevenson. “When I was writing it, I was thinking of it as a radio play,” she says. “It really got me thinking about how much visual elements matter in scripts. They can’t see this facial expression. They can’t see this thing I want to convey without saying it. It made me really think about all the things we take for granted when working with visual art forms.”

While it was a new challenge, Stevenson ended up enjoying the challenge and medium itself. “It’s up to you to create the world [with a podcast],” she explains. “There is a level of intimacy with it. You can create the word in your head that you are listening to… I have been listening to other scripted podcasts in my car and it’s cool to have that as a possibility. You can’t watch tv while you are driving but you can ‘listen to TV.’” 

In the semi-autobiographical work, Stevenson plays the daughter character and her mother is played by Essman. “I am such a huge fan of Susie,” Stevenson explains. “It was oddly helpful in a way [for her to play my mother] because she is so different from my mom that it kind of made me feel less weird about it.”

Even with new voice talent, the act of making something so personal was difficult at times. “When I heard cuts of it, it was just me hearing arguments that I have had with my mom for the past ten years come to life. It is a little jarring.” She continues, “My biggest hesitation was what people would think of my mom… I did talk to her about it. She gave me her blessing which made me feel better. But hopefully, what I did a good job of, was also showing my faults as a character and where I have done things wrong as well.” 

Stevenson felt like the piece was necessary. “I wanted to write it because a lot of the content I see in the world that is about mother-daughter relationships is much more flowery and positive,” she says. “I have always had a tension with my mom that I wanted to see more of in media…. I wanted to highlight generational differences and how hard it is to get through to people who fundamentally don’t agree with you on subjects you are set on and passionate about.”

10 episodes of Like Mother are available to stream on Audible.