In a world where everyone shares a tattoo with their soulmate, you’d think falling in love would be easy. Journey to the Heart follows three best friends as they go on an adventure of a lifetime. Albina, Babette, and Charlie are displeased with their soulmate tattoo, or lack of one, for different reasons, and this leads them to go on an adventure that will change their lives forever. 

Journey to the Heart will also be the first “choose your own journey” podcast musical. The audience will get to decide where the story goes and your choices will influence what you hear in each episode. The alternate versions of the episodes that aren’t released on our main feed will be released on our Patreon for those of you who have been supporting us consistently since the launch of the Flame and new Patrons who join for this season. 

This season we’ll be exploring the concept of soul mates. What does it mean to not have a soul mate? What does it mean to choose your own partner and choose your own adventure despite the path that was chosen for you? We’re also exploring ethical non-monogamy in a world where you’re told you only have one option and it’s quite literally tattooed on your body. 

• We need $55,000 to fund this project. Your money will go towards paying actors, directors, writing, composing, sound design, music production, musicians’ recording equipment, distribution, graphic design, character animation design, social media and marketing. 
• By helping support the project, you also get access to incredible perks, like a full Cast Album once the show has been released, or limited signed Character Art prints!
• If we don’t reach our entire goal, we’ll pay our actors first, followed by music production and sound design and our core production team, and we’ll cut our social media and marketing budget. 

Only 5% of LGBTQ stories in the media have happy endings. We want to change that. All of our stories are guaranteed to have a happy ending, but that doesn’t mean our characters won’t have any challenges. Their challenges will just be because the sirens are luring them into the sea or the Princess won’t give them the blessing because they slept with her and never called her back, but not because they’re gay.

Journey to the Heart is the second musical podcast project from Dollar Bean Productions, the team who brought you The Flame, starring Jenn Colella and Jasmin Savoy Brown. While this will be an entirely different adventure, we want to keep the same spirit as The Flame. Think of us like Happy Madison Productions, but super gay and with musical podcasts. We want to prove to ourselves and to you that LGBTQ stories are worth telling and producing at a very high production level.

Ellie Brigida (Scoring and Music Producer), “Charlie”

Ellie Brigida is a musician, producer and podcaster from Boston, MA. She has a degree in Music Business from Wagner College and is currently the Studio Production Manager for Clear Harmonies. She has been performing in Musicals since she was 8 years old as Annie and she’s excited to get back to her roots as Charlie in Journey to the Heart! 

Ellie is the co-host and producer of Lez Hang Out – an award winning podcast on the TAGG podcast network with 30k monthly listeners and over a million downloads to date. It has been featured on LOGO’s list of best queer podcasts, HER’s The Best LGBTQ+ Podcasts You Should Be Listening To and named #1 lesbian podcast to listen to on FeedSpot. 

Leigh Holmes Foster (Composer), “Rosalind”

Leigh lives in the Bay Area with her wife, kids, and dog. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Boston University, and by day works as a Scientific Account Manager. After spending her childhood surrounded by musical theater, she has been thrilled to dive into songwriting and composing as part of Lez Hang Out and Dollar Bean Productions.

Leigh is the co-host and producer of Lez Hang Out – an award winning podcast on the TAGG podcast network with 30k monthly listeners and over a million downloads to date. It has been featured on LOGO’s list of best queer podcasts, HER’s The Best LGBTQ+ Podcasts You Should Be Listening To and named #1 lesbian podcast to listen to on FeedSpot. 

Valerie Rose Lohman (Executive Producer), “Babette” 

Valerie voiced the lead role of Edith Finch in the critically acclaimed Video Game “What Remains of Edith Finch”, produced by Annapurna Interactive; Valerie’s received a BAFTA Nomination for her portrayal of 17 year old Edith. This year, Valerie stars as Jess Blazkowicz in the highly anticipated Wolfenstein: Youngblood, released by Bethesda! She received a 2018 Young Entertainer Award for her work in the film. 

Caitlyn Clear (Book) 

From a young age, Caitlyn’s interests have always included any form of storytelling. Now a writer by day, avid TV watcher by night, she hopes to create stories that reflect the diverse world we live in. In her free time, she enjoys reading books on LGBTQ+ history and experimenting with new desserts! She’s a graduate from Columbia College Chicago and Chapman University. 

We understand that not everyone can make a financial contribution to the campaign, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t help! 

• The biggest help is to get more eyes on our campaign by sharing on social media or sending out e-mails! Reach out to us at theflamemusical@lezhangoutpod.com for e-mail templates to send to your friends and family. 
• And you can use the Indiegogo share tools to get it out there!