“The Trouble With Words” – Los Angeles theater review for LA Weekly

Gentle readers! This week my theater review for the LA Weekly is of Coeurage Theatre Company’s superb musical The Trouble With Words, now playing at Lost Studio in Hancock Park district, on La Brea.

*** Coeurage Theatre Company has a really special policy of ‘Pay What You Want,’ as in, after you’ve seen their show, you can plunk down some cash to support their future staging efforts.  Pretty cool, methinks.***

Click here to go to the LA Weekly’s theater page and scroll down a little bit to find it.

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Happy reading!

The Trouble With Words

Composer and musical director Gregory Nabours’ 90-minute musical, The Trouble With Words, is smart, sexy, funny and heartbreaking, with 18 appealing songs (five of them new for this production).

Presented as the opening number, the title tune is catchy enough to hook you in immediately.

The attractive and searingly talented cast of six — Julianne Donelle, Aimee Karlin, Jamie Mills, Chris Roque, Ryan Wagner and Robert Wallace — sings and dances their way through a thematically connected song cycle.

The show dispenses with the typical musical storyline. Rather, it adroitly explores the complexities of communication in a contemporary urban world, examining issues of isolation, romance and sexual attraction.

“Gotta Get Laid” is crude and hilariously forthright, while “The Busiest Corner in Town,” a song about feeling alone in a bustling city, features Karlin’s heart-wrenching solo backed by pretty themes on piano, strings, flute and acoustic guitar.

The six equally accomplished musicians (also onstage, and led by Nabours on piano) perform everything from tender, plaintive ballads to rock-infused numbers to jazz and tango-flavored tunes.

Janet Roston’s choreography is sublime.

The Coeurage Theater Company does not charge for admission — you can pay what you want at the end of the show. And trust me, after you see The Trouble With Words, you’ll be happy to open your wallet.

Coeurage Theatre Company at Lost Studio,

130 S. La Brea Ave., Hancock Park

Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.;

Runs through March 31.

(323) 944-2165

Reserve your ticket/seat here.