PleasureTown Chicago Public Media

Unfamiliar with PleasureTown? If you ask some, PleasureTown was paradise on Earth, a place where anyone could be and do whatever they wanted without fear of judgment or retribution from their fellow man or woman. If you ask others, it was a powderkeg of sin just waiting to explode.

And if you ask others still, it’s an interactive serial podcast that takes the best of classic radio shows and mashes it up with the dark sensibilities of a contemporary cable television drama. How are we interactive? Well, we invite our listeners to join the story by submitting original art, writings, videos…heck, you name it. Oh, and we are part of the WBEZ podcast network.

In this episode, Claude and Cyrus invite listeners to join them in retracing the steps that lead them to PleasureTown. Despite their contrasting personalities, both Claude and Cyrus share histories rooted in hardship. As the son of a Mississippi slave owner, Claude’s guilt drives him to search for a place where men are equal and the bourbon always flows. Similarly, Cyrus, a sharp but penniless misfit from New Mexico, is stricken by wanderlust and dreams of life beyond the futility of hard labor. After a chance meeting in a bar, the two dream up a place “to go after their happy.” Join Claude and Cyrus as they relive the moments leading up to meeting each other and their search for a place to call their own: PleasureTown.

As word spread of the strange, hedonistic town, more and more lost souls gravitated toward a place they believed could be their home. In this episode, we follow Shaman John, once a man of faith turned mystic, through his first day as a Pleasure Town resident. Meanwhile, Matilda Barker tells her tale of love, pain and the strange brew concocted when you mix the two. After years of silence, her husband Henry gets an opportunity to recount his side of the story.

As PleasureTown transformed into a budding settlement, the community began to see a flood of diverse immigrants. With all the activity, it didn’t take long for the media to catch wind of the diamond in the red dirt, and so a reporter from New York City ventured out West to immerse himself among the eccentrics of the budding community. While he is no stranger to experimental townships -- such as the likes of Oneida and the Harmony Society -- he recognizes in PleasureTown a unique charm. We also meet the town’s resident doctor and hear of his peculiar origins as well as the surprising secret he harbors within.

As the population of PleasureTown continued to swell, the settlement began to see an uptick in violence, lawlessness and murder. In this episode, town founders Cyrus and Claude engage in a heated battle of words, with one advocating for rule and order while the other holds firm on the town’s ethos of unfettered freedoms. We also meet Deuteronomy, an outsider who has been called to town for a special purpose. Unbeknownst to the residents, his arrival could very well mark the beginning of the end of their beloved community.

In this episode, we meet PleasureTown's barber, who tells the story of how he and his blind brother fled to the settlement after a particularly hairy run-in with a local bigot. We also revisit Shaman John and hear his tale of loss and woe. To cope, the Mormon-turned-mystic smokes an herbal mix and wanders into the woods... only to find himself face-to-face with the Devil himself. Will he give up his soul for the one thing he misses most?