A Lesbian and Her Straight Friend Rock Boston in "K&A"

After ten years of crazy hijinks with her straight best friend Audrey Claire Johnson, Boston lesbian Katie Shannon looked back on it all and realized their unusual dynamic was just too good to keep to herself. So the two gathered a crew, wrote some episodes and are now finishing up a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to film their comedic indie web series "K&A."

"She's just always been my best friend, and I kind of think it's a unique character dynamic that is not often explored," said Shannon in a recent interview. "A lot of times, lesbian shows are always surrounded by other gay characters, and it was not reflecting my life. So I wrote about how I see things, and how our relationship exists."

"K&A" follows two Boston women, Karly (straight) and Alex (lesbian), who have been best friends since college, of which Shannon noted, "We went to college together and lived together for seven years, and then both lived in Beacon Hill like 30 seconds from each other, so it's based on things that happened to us and to our friends."

Their dysfunctional, codependent, booze-fueled relationship impedes them from ever finding someone special in their lives besides each other. And that's okay.

"One episode is titled '50 Shades of Gray,' and Karly has a hookup with a guy," said Shannon. "Alex is not hooking up with anyone, but it's okay, because the show focuses on friendship more than romantic life."

The show has more in common with Amy Poehler's web series "Broad City" than with Lena Dunham's "Girls," because the show is primarily about the relationship between the two female leads than the sexual hijinks they go through. But some of the situations did happen to Shannon and Johnson in real life.

"We have a whole episode written about the time we found a rat in the bathroom," said Shannon. "And it happened to us. A rat was stuck in our wall for a long time. We called an exterminator, and basically it was just a guy who beat the rat to death."

This is the final week of their Kickstarter campaign, and the women have about $2,000 more to raise before they can begin shooting Season 1, which will be five episodes. The leads have also been cast: Johnson will play the role of Karly and Ashley Elmi will play the role of Alex. Johnson has starred before in their web series "617: The Series" as well as a "The Morning After," which was recently seen in the Boston LGBT Film Festival. The two women plan to submit "K&A" to film festivals as well.

"Hopefully when we get our money, we can start making out the production schedule and shooting it next month," said Shannon. "We have the crew set -- we've all worked together before -- and we just have to cast a couple more characters."

The two will be promoting "K&A" at Dyke Night at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plains, and encourage everyone to visit the Kickstarter page and make a donation. The money will be used to pay the cast and crew, rent equipment, craft services, post-production, permit and insurance.

"If our story resonates, check out our page and donate," said Shannon. "Any amount helps."