Enjoy PLEASURE MACHINE for free this March!

In celebration of PLEASURE MACHINE’s placement in Segal Center’s 7th Annual Film Festival in Theatre and Performance, all nine episodes of this lush audio thriller will be available for free.

Click here to listen to Colt Coeur’s first ever podcast!

Colt Coeur is proud to present PLEASURE MACHINE, a nine-episode audio thriller that collides Sophie Treadwell’s expressionist drama Machinal with adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism. PLEASURE MACHINEtells the story of one artist’s attempt to cultivate authentic experiences of pleasure inside the pressures of ‘white and woke’ capitalism.

About PLEASURE MACHINE: When H (Starr Busby), a budding sound artist (think ASMR meets guided meditation), receives the offer of a lifetime from tech giant Librate, they are forced to choose between their artistic integrity, the allure of freedom, and the stability of their family. From Bed Stuy to Mexico City, over cocktails and Twitter, H battles financial and ethical pressures until they lose themself and their loved ones in one fell swoop. A sonic journey through lust, loss, and forgiveness, PLEASURE MACHINE explores the consequences of caring deeply in a system that wants to turn care into a consumable.

CREATIVE TEAM

Written & Conceived by Diane Exavier, Phaedra Michelle Scott and May Treuhaft-Ali
Directed & Conceived by Tara Elliott
Creative Produced & conceived in collaboration with Emma Orme
Sound by UptownWorks, with Engineering, Editing, Design, Mix, and Additional Music by Daniela Hart, Bailey Trierweiler, Noel Nichols
Original Music by Starr Busby
Additional Music by Hyperion Drive
Podcast Key Consultant Nichole Hill

CAST

H is played by Starr Busby
Val is played by Portia
Jojo is played by Amara J. Brady
Zina is played by Jasmin Walker
Kane is played by Adam Harrington
Ensemble roles are voiced by Sagan Chen, Eric Lockley, Susan Ly, Peter McNally, Emma Orme, Max Samuels, Sam West, and Akyiaa Wilson

PRODUCING TEAM

PLEASURE MACHINE is produced by Colt Coeur, in association with Emma Orme and Tara Elliott.
Associate Producer & Writers’ Room Coordinator Al Parker
Colt Coeur Artistic Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Colt Coeur Interim Managing Director Alex Marrs
Marketing Director Maryama Dahir
UptownWorks Project Management Mattie McGarey
Dramaturgical Consulting by Iyvon E.
Key Art by Lauren Matrka

SUPPORT

This project was made possible by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation, with additional major support from Ashley Garrett. The live events were made possible by NYSCA’s Restart Grant.

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Additional support from Deborah Sontag and R Lee Stump.

Special Thanks to Erica Rotstein, Bailey Williams, Vanessa Garcia, Marisa Prefer, Pioneer Works, Project Parlor, Ethan Woods, Alice Tolan-Mee, Zia Lawrence, Matthew Cohn, Katherine George, Tanya Everett, and Sophie Gorai.

THE PLEASURE PARTIES PAST EVENTS

PLEASURE MACHINE Launch Party
H’s Sound Social: A Concert Party in the Pioneer Works Garden
Tuesday, November 2

H is a sound artist, a creator of aural experiences. Usually, they only offer private sessions. But for one night only, they will bring their community together through collective listening and personal pleasure. Come to the party they’ve created for you.

Celebrate the launch of PLEASURE MACHINE in the magical garden of Pioneer Works with a live musical performance from the podcast’s lead actor and composer, Starr Busby, and their band. The experience will also feature appetizers by local Red Hook restaurant Fort Defiance, a specialty cocktail, pleasure stations, and more.

Pleasure Party: H’s Sound Social - $25
The Party ticket grants you access to the Pleasure Launch Party, which includes a concert by S T A R R, free appetizers, a specialty cocktail, somatic experiences, and more...

Pleasure Party & Podcast Package: H’s Sound Social - $40
The Party & Podcast package grants you access to the whole podcast—as episodes are released!—and access to H’s Sound Social, which includes a concert by S T A R R, free appetizers, a specialty cocktail, somatic experiences, and more...
Click here for tickets!

This project was made possible by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation and NYSCA’s Restart Grant.

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Special Thanks to Erica Rotstein, Alex Marrs, Bailey Williams, Vanessa Garcia, Marisa Prefer, Pioneer Works, and Project Parlor.

Pleasure Machine was made possible by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation, NYSCA’s Restart Grant, with additional major support from Ashley Garrett. Additional support from Deborah Sontag and R Lee Stump.

BIOS

Starr Busby (she/they) is a singing, writing, acting and teaching artist committed to the liberation of all people. You may have seen Starr playing solo shows with their loop station, Francis, or fronting Brooklyn based experimental soul band People’s Champs. Starr has also supported artists such as The Gorillaz, Esperanza Spalding, X Ambassadors, Kimbra, and Alice Smith. Selected appearances include: Moby Dick (American Repertory Theatre; Starbuck); Octet (Signature Theatre; Paula - Drama Desk Award Winner); Where Love Lies Fallow (The Shed; Nia 1); Apollo Cafe Live: Soul Cypher; #BlackGirlMagic Show (Jack; composer/performer); Mikrokosmos (Steirischer Herbst, Graz and Nottingham Contemporary); The Girl with the Incredible Feeling (Spoleto Festival di Mondi) as well as various concerts and solo shows. Starr also enjoys working as an arts educator at Carnegie Hall and Long Island University where she is an adjunct faculty member. She is looking forward to continuing the development of (pray) with nicHi douglas and JJJJJerome Ellis at Ars Nova where they are a 2020 - 2021 Vision Resident. Starr recently released an EP and accompanying visual album, 9 C u p s i n t h e M o o N. You can listen to their music via all streaming services and Bandcamp.

Tara Elliott (she/her) is the director of critically acclaimed shows Burq Off! and Not the One and a producer of the Gotham Award-winning web series Shugs & Fats. She translated and directed the workshop premiere of prize-winning Chilean play Las Analfabetas. She is the recipient of a Tow Travel Grant for research in Cuba, a CUNY Diversity Fund grant, and has developed new plays with Clubbed Thumb, Pipeline Theater Company, LaMicro Theater, Teatro LATEA, BAX, Goethe Institut, Exquisite Corpse Company, KOFest, and The Barn Arts Collective. Her work has been seen internationally in London, Seoul, Edinburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, and Santiago, and in NYC at The Public, The Cherry Lane, The New Ohio, HERE Arts, and Walkerspace among others. 2019/2020 Directing Resident with Colt Coeur. 2018 Drama League Directing Fellow. MFA Directing, Brooklyn College.

Emma Orme (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based producer and performer with a focus on new theatrical work. She is newly the Producing Director of Hypokrit Productions, where she is currently producing Danny Pudi's autobiographical film RUNNING. She has previously served as the BOLD Associate Producer at Northern Stage, the Artistic Producer of VoxLab (a live arts residency at Dartmouth College), the Grants Manager for Williamstown Theatre Festival, and a video producer for The New York Times and the documentary The Kleptocrats.

Additional producing credits include: Time Out Critics' Pick Brief Chronicle, Books 6-8 (i am a slow tide); NYT Critics’ Pick Red Emma & The Mad Monk (The Tank); Polylogues (Dixon Place); NYT Critics’ Pick AGNES (Lesser America); and workshops of new plays by Sunita Prasad, Justine Gelfman, and more. Performance credits include: The Daughters and Black Dick [readings] (New York Theatre Workshop); Tongue Depressor (Weasel Festival @ The Public Theater); Bad Penny and LOCKED UP BITCHES (The Flea); Napoli, Brooklyn [reading] and Song For A Future Generation (Williamstown Theatre Festival); and The Bacchae (LaMama Experimental Theatre). BA: Dartmouth College

May Treuhaft-Ali is a playwright and new-play dramaturg. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she completed an M.Phil in Theatre and Performance Studies at Trinity College Dublin on a George J. Mitchell Scholarship. She is a Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm, a 2021 Visionary Playwright at Theater Masters, an alumna of Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group, and a recipient of two commissions from Adventure Theatre MTC. She has worked as a dramaturg at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Ars Nova ANT Fest, and Haven Theatre Chicago. Her dramaturgical essays have been published in Playwrights Horizons’ Almanac and Table Work Press’ Two Plays. May is currently the Literary Fellow at Playwrights Horizons.

Phaedra Michelle Scott is a playwright and dramaturg based in New York City. Her play, DIASPORA! was a commissioned work through SpeakEasy Stages’s The Boston Project. She is a past resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm for her play PLANTATION BLACK, and is currently a member of the obie-award winning playwriting ensemble, Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theater and Pipeline Theater Company’s PlayLab. Her play GOOD HAIR, is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant. Scott has been commissioned by University of Massachusetts, Sparkhaven Theater Company and Dramatic Question Theater. She has been an arts and culture journalist for wbur, Boston’s NPR station; a content developer at the USS Constitution Museum where she made maritime history accessible through storytelling and media. She is the resident dramaturg of New Harmony Project and is VP of Programs for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). Scott has received a Bly Creative Capacity Grant for her work as dramaturg for Black Theater Commons as well as the recipient of the Frederick Douglass Fellowship for her research on August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle. She is a crocheter, horror fan and obscure history enthusiast. She/Her/Hers. www.phaedrascott.com

Diane Exavier is a writer, theatermaker, and educator who creates performances, public programs, and games that invite audiences to participate in a theater that rejects passive reception. With a point of departure located in the Caribbean Diaspora, Diane explores what she calls the 4L’s: love, loss, legacy, and land. Intersecting performance and poetry, her work has been presented at BRIC Arts, Brooklyn Poets, The Bushwick Starr, Sibiu's International Theater Festival in Romania, Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, and more. Her writing appears in The Atlas Review, The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, and Staatstheater Hannover Magazine, amongst other publications. Her play Good Blood received a 2017 Kilroys List Honorable Mention. Her hybrid poetry collection The Math of Saint Felix is forthcoming from The 3rd Thing Press in 2021. Diane is a 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow Finalist, as well as a Virtual Realm member of The Playwrights Realm 2020-2021 season. Diane holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from Brown University. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

Al Parker (they/she) is a creative producer, dramaturg, and stage manager based in New York City. As Artistic Associate with The Parsnip Ship, they produce audio theatre works, dramaturg new plays in development and facilitate the in-house Radio Roots Writers’ Group. They are a proud member of National Queer Theater’s Artistic Collective. They were a member of the 2020-21 Ars Nova Emerging Leaders Group as the Fundraising & Event Producing Fellow. They have produced, coordinated, stage managed and front of house managed events with Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre Company, Ars Nova, MCC, the Civilans, National Queer Theater, the Billie Holiday Theatre, ArKtype Productions, and Theatre in Asylum. Originally from South Dakota, they completed their studies in Dramatic Literature and Creative Writing at New York University.

Colt Coeur is a Brooklyn-based Theater Company founded by Adrienne Campbell-Holt in 2010. Our original, story-driven, visceral theater pulls you close and doesn’t let go. Our community of artists nurtures and invests in diverse perspectives to produce work that straddles the line between mainstream and experimental. We strive to create great happenings in small rooms, theater as close as a whisper in your ear or a stranger’s hand brushing yours. Intimacy is our way in.

Artistic Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt leads a 21-member ensemble of actors, playwrights, and designers to nurture the next generation of theater artists through the development and production of new plays and by providing arts education and mentorship to students from under-resourced nyc public schools. Over 10 years, Colt Coeur has produced 12 world premieres, 1 east coast premiere; developed 42 plays; and provided free arts education for over 150 students. All 13 of Colt Coeur’s world premieres have earned rave reviews and explored themes of resonance to our times while ranging in subject matter from teen pregnancy, to postpartum depression and the struggle to make ends meet for a working-class family, to the underlying appetite for new frontiers that is manifest in applicants looking to travel on a one-way mission to Mars.

UptownWorks loves telling stories through sound and music! Supervised by founder Daniela Hart (she/her) and joined by sound associates Noel Nichols (she/they) and Bailey Trierweiler (they/them), our team is passionate about all aspects of the sound creation and design process. Some of our recent work includes designing and engineering theater, audio dramas and podcasts as well as post-production services for film and commercial content. We value working collaboratively in our projects and enjoy using our skills collectively to uplift the voices of diverse artists, businesses, and communities.