Coeurage Theatre Company

Coeurage was founded in the fall of 2009, when 12 graduates from California State University, Fullerton met in the back of a pie shop to form a theatre company. Our philosophy was simple: the cost of a ticket should never prevent anyone from seeing high quality theatre in Los Angeles. With our Pay What You Want ticketing model in place, we produced our first piece in early 2010, an original series of monologues written for an all female cast titled “Head Over Heels.” The late Steve Julian attended and wrote a widely shared article with the headline, "Six people see Head over Heels, millions show no Coeurage." The writeup, which lauded our work while lamenting small LA theatre houses, helped put us on the map, and our attendance rose to a rare level of consistency amongst LA's intimate theatre scene.

We would have never conceived that the work we originally produced out of garages and now- condemned buildings could ultimately lead us to acclaim in American Theatre Magazine and a slot in the mainstage season at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre, where Coeurage was awarded the inaugural production of their Block Party program.

During the pandemic we were forced to pivot and create art in a different way. The Nomad Project was launched!  The ongoing project currently has ten different stories based at specific coordinates around Los Angeles, using existing locations as inspiration for fully produced aural journeys. Audiences can experience them in-person, on-the-go, or from the comfort of home. You can listen here: https://www.coeurage.org/nomad-project

Our 2022 productions of RENT by Jonathan Larson, had a cast consciously composed largely with queer and Latinx representation, and a predominantly female-identifying production team. We brought on an EDI consultant for the casting process as well as throughout the entire process. Having her at casting was game-changing and we will continue this practice. And we consciously hired a woman of color to direct a play by a white man. Their contributions to the depth and richness of storytelling were invaluable to both Coeurage Ensemble as an organization and to our audiences. We were sold out by the end of opening night, and were running a waitlist throughout.

Our 2023 production of FROZEN FLUID by Fly Jamerson was cast entirely with actors who identify as trans or nonbinary. Our partnership with The Los Angeles LGBT Center for this production allowed us to engage directly with the Center's extensive queer and trans community, expanding our Coeurage community and offering greater access to live theater with our Pay What You Want ticket model. We were able to tell a story that had not yet been told in Los Angeles, where stories of the trans, nonbinary experience tend to be grounded in Realism. By presenting Fly’s poetry-driven script, we reached folks in a heartspace. We are incredibly proud of the impact the piece had on our audiences. One (cis-gender male) reviewer wrote, “I’m grateful to Coeurage Ensemble and the Los Angeles LGBT Center for putting this play on. What’s the point of going to the theater if all it does is affirm our values rather than challenge them? To its profound credit, there’s nothing pedantic about this play, and even less so about this playful production. The production is an earnest attempt to figure something out, a noble impulse, and, for this audience member, it offered an invite to do the same.”