Most Popular Books by Neil Labute

She''s a college professor with a prim demeanor, and he''s a carpenter with a foul mouth and violent streak. Betty has a history of promiscuity that Bobby won''t let her forget, and from their first taunting exchanges there are intimations also of the history between them. Yet on the night when Betty urgently needs help to empty her cabin in the woods--the cabin she''s been renting to a male student--she calls on Bobby. In this exhilarating play of secrets and sibling rivalry, which had its premiere in London''s West End in 2011, Neil LaBute unflinchingly explores the dark territory beyond, as Bobby sneeringly says, "the lies you tell yourself to get by."

Your career as a writer is blossoming, your beautiful, young fiancee is waiting to get married and rush off to Cancun by your side—so what is your natural reaction? Well, if you''re a man, it''s probably to get nervous and start calling up old girlfriends. And so begins a single man''s odyssey through four hotel rooms as he flies across the country in search of the perfect woman (that he''s already broken up with). Some Girl(s) is the latest work from Neil Labute, American theater''s great agent provocateur. In grand LaBute fashion, this by turns outrageously funny and deadly serious portrait of the artist as a young seducer casts a truthful, hilarious light on a typical young American male as he wanders through the heart of darkness that is himself. This edition includes a deleted scene.

In Reasons to Be Pretty, Greg''s tight-knit social circle is thrown into turmoil when his offhand remarks about a female coworker''s pretty face and his own girlfriend Steph''s lack thereof get back to Steph. But that''s just the beginning. Greg''s best buddy, Kent, and Kent''s wife, Carly, also enter into the picture, and the emotional equation becomes exponentially more complicated. As their relationships crumble, the four friends are forced to confront a sea of deceit, infidelity, and betrayed trust in their journey to answer that oh-so-American question: How much is pretty worth? Neil LaBute''s bristling new comic drama puts the final ferocious cap on a trilogy of plays that began with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig. America''s obsession with physical beauty is confronted headlong in this brutal and exhilarating work.

His films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors both gained critical renown for their biting satire and caustic wit. Now, with The Distance from Here, he has written his most riveting play yet, an intense look at the dark side of American suburbia. With little to occupy their time other than finding a decent place to hang out—the zoo, the mall, the school parking lot—Darrell and Tim are two American teenagers who lack any direction or purpose in their lives. When Darrell’s suspicion about the faithlessness of his girlfriend is confirmed and Tim comes to her defense, there is nothing to brake their momentum as all three speed toward disaster.

Set on September 12, 2001, The Mercy Seat continues Neil LaBute''s unflinching fascination with the often-brutal realities of the war between the sexes. In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. A man and a woman explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they had lived just the day before. Can one be opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness?

Belinda and Cody Phipps appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.

Karen and Steve are glamorous movie stars with one thing in common: desperation. It’s been years since either one’s had a hit, but a hot-shot European director could change that with his latest movie. The night before filming a big scene that will undoubtedly bring them back onto the pop culture radar, Karen and her partner, Bev, meet with Steve and his aspiring actress wife, Missy, in order to make an important decision. How far will they let themselves go to keep from slipping further down the Hollywood food chain? THE MONEY SHOT is a hilarious and insightful comedy about ambition, art, status, and sex in an era—and an industry—where very little is sacred and almost nothing is taboo.

What they do have, however, is a very awkward encounter after spending one hot night together following a drunken wedding reception they attend. They wake up to a blurry morning where the rules of attraction, sex and society are waiting for them before their first cup of coffee, leading them to ponder how much they really know about each other and how much they really care about what other people think.Slyly profound and irresistibly passionate, The Way We Get By is Neil LaBute''s audacious tale of a very modern romance—a sharp, sexy, fresh look at love and lust and the whole damn thing.

Two brothers meet on the grounds of a private psychiatric facility. Drew, has been court-confined for observation and has called his older brother, Terry, to corroborate his claim of childhood sexual abuse by a young man from many summers ago. Drew''s request releases barely-hidden animosities between the two: Is he using these repressed memories to save himself while smearing the name of his brother''s friend? Through pain and acknowledged betrayal, the brothers come to grips with and begin to understand the legacy of abuse, both inside and outside their family home. In a Dark, Dark House is the latest work from Neil LaBute, American theater''s great agent provocateur. The play will have its world Premiere in May 2007, Off Broadway at New York''s MCC Theater.

THE STORY: Amidst the chaos and horror of the worst office shooting in American history, John Smith sees the face of God. His modern-day revelation creates a maelstrom of disbelief among everyone he knows. A newcomer to faith, John urgently searche

How far would you go for love? For art? What would you be willing to change? Which price might you pay? Such are the painful questions explored by Neil Labute in The Shape of Things. A young student drifts into an ever-changing relationship with an art major while his best friends'' engagement crumbles, so unleashing a drama that peels back the skin of two modern-day relationships, exposing the raw meat and gristle that lie beneath. The world premi re of The Shape of Things was presented at the Almeida, London, in May 2001.

THE STORY: Three years after a contentious break-up, Steph and Greg are wondering if they can make a fresh go of it. Trouble is, she''s married to someone else and he''s just embarked on a relationship with Steph''s best friend, Carly, a single mom whose jealous ex-husband, Kent, has trouble articulating his feelings. Navigating the rocky landscape of conflicting agendas and exploding emotions isn''t going to be easy for any of them. REASONS TO BE HAPPY is a funny, surprising, and poignant play about the choices and sacrifices we are willing to make in the pursuit of that often elusive ideal: happiness.

After five years in New York City, Greg and Steph return to their hometown for their 20th high school reunion and to a dramatic encounter with Kent and Carly, the friends they left behind. Old secrets and new lies become increasingly difficult to hide as the evening (and the drinking) goes on. With Reasons To Be Pretty Happy, Neil LaBute revisits the characters first introduced in Reasons To Be Pretty (2009 Tony Award-nominated Best Play) and Reasons To Be Happy as they grapple with that eternal question: Have I become the person I wanted to be? In this essential new American play, Neil LaBute concludes his brilliant and penetrating "Reasons" trilogy with perfect clarity and enormous heart, capturing and refracting that moment in his characters'' lives--and in our own as well--when they finally land on a "pretty good" version of happiness.Reasons To Be Pretty Happy had its world premiere at MCC Theater in a benefit reading that featured Paul Rudd, Amber Tamblyn, Norbert Leo Butz, Jennifer Mudge and was directed by Neil LaBute.

Cow. Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus sized-and then some. Forced to explain his new relationship to his shallow (although shockingly funny) friends, finally he comes to terms with his own preconceptions of the importance of conventional good looks. Neil LaBute''s sharply drawn play not only critiques our slavish adherence to Hollywood ideals of beauty but boldy questions our own ability to change what we dislike about ourselves.

Filthy Talk for Troubled Time is one of LaBute''s earliest plays. A downbeat night at a topless bar exposes the gulf between the twitchy clientele and the waitresses who serve but despise them. The Mercy Seat examines a couple who, on the day after a world-changing atrocity, toy with exploiting it to start a new life. Some Girl(s) follows a young writer''s panicked retreat from his imminent wedding as he seeks out old girlfriends and opens new wounds, while in This Is How It Goes the breakdown of a seemingly successful marriage is complicated by submerged bigotry. The collection also includes two short plays about relationships in crisis - A Second of Pleasure and Helter Skelter - which are in equal part tender and chilling. Together these plays form a complex and compelling portrait of the sexes - sometimes warring, sometimes loving, but never fully at peace.

Neil LaBute burst onto the American theater scene with the premiere of BASH at NYC’s Douglas Fairbanks Theater in 1999 in a wildly praised production that featured Calista Flockhart, Paul Rudd, and Ron Eldard. It went on to play at the Almeida Theatre in London and since then has seen hundreds of productions across the U.S. and around the world. These three provocative one-act plays examine the complexities of evil in everyday life and thrillingly exhibit LaBute’s signature raw lyrical intensity. Ablaze with the muscular dialogue and searing artistry that immediately established him as a major playwright, BASH is enduringly brilliant—classic and essential Neil LaBute. In Medea Redux, a young woman relates her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her high school English teacher; in Iphigenia in Orem, a businessman confides to a stranger in a Las Vegal hotel room about a chilling crime; and in A Gaggle of Saints, a young couple separately recounts the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City.

"Sitting in an automobile was where I first remember understanding how drama works...Hidden in the back seat of a sedan, I quickly realized how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car." --Neil LaBute Be it the medium for clandestine couplings, arguments, shelter, or ultimately transportation, the automobile is perhaps the most authentically American of spaces. In Autobahn, Neil LaBute''s provocative new collection of one-act plays set within the confines of the front seat, the playwright employs his signature plaintive insight to great effect, investigating the inchoate apprehension that surrounds the steering wheel. Each of these seven brief vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship--from a make-out session gone awry to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64 to a daughter''s long ride home after her release from rehab. The result is an unsettling montage that gradually reveals the scabrous force of words left unsaid while illuminating the delicate interplay between intention and morality, capturing the essence of middle America and the myriad paths which cross its surface.

A collection of early work and new short pieces from “the bad boy of American theater” (Time). Neil LaBute burst onto the American theater scene in 1989 with his controversial debut Filthy Talk for Troubled Times. Set in a barroom in Anytown, USA, and populated by a series of everymen (and two beleaguered everywomen), this series of frank exchanges explores the innumerable varieties of American intolerance. A unique snapshot of the times, the play—seldom allowed production by the author since—provides a compelling look at the early thinking and evolution of one of our great theater artists. Also in this collection is a series of new, short works, some never before produced. They include “The New Testament,” a showbiz satire that takes a close look at the perils of color-blind casting, and “The Furies,” in which a woman helps navigate her brother’s breakup with his out—and then perhaps in-the-closet again—lover. “There is something of the sinister menace of Pinter in LaBute’s work (along with David Mamet, he is very much the heir apparent to that master).” —Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times “There is no playwright on the planet these days who is writing better than Neil LaBute.” —John Lahr, The New Yorker

In Seconds of Pleasure Neil LaBute unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor."--Jacket.

“Superb and subversive,” this award-winning one-man play is “a masterly attempt to shed light on the ways in which we manufacture our own darkness” (John Lahr, The New Yorker). Can someone honestly love a person whom they have deceived for thirty years? This is the central question behind Wrecks, Neil LaBute’s dramatic foray into the dark side of human nature. Meet Edward Carr: loving father, successful businessman, grieving widower. In this concise powerhouse of a play, LaBute limns the boundaries of love, exploring the limits of what society will accept versus what the heart will desire. This collection also features rarely staged short plays, including “Liars’ Club,” “Coax," and the never-before-seen “Falling in Like.” “LaBute’s . . . cruel wit and chronicles of immoral moralizers have made him, arguably, the most legitimately provocative and polarizing playwright at work today.” ―David Amsden, New York Magazine “A tough-minded writer.” ―Michael Kuchwara, The Washington Post “A playwright [with] an unparalleled ear for dialogue.” ―Jacque Le Sourd, The Journal News

Brad and Jodie need Tate to do them a favour. A really big favour. Brad is married to Jodie. Jodie went to school with Tate. Tate doesn''t trust Brad. Brad and Jodie are at a life-changing crossroads and struggling to make a monumental decision about their life and love, and Tate--just maybe--has been there before. In this timely, dark, and dazzling new play, Neil LaBute takes a penetrating, point-blank look at a couple confronting the hardest decision of their lives and the aftermath of that decision. How To Fight Loneliness is Neil LaBute''s most shocking, and also most tender, play yet.

In the title play, Exhibit ‘A’, an artist pushes the boundaries of his art to a previously untouched frontier, challenging the very definition of “art.†? 10K explores the territory where fantasy and desire merge, as a man and woman share secrets while traversing a suburban jogging path. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is a tense confrontation between two men in a park. In Happy Hour, a guy and a gal meet cute in a bar. I’m Going To Stop Pretending (That I Didn’t Break Your Heart) lays bare a couple at the bitter end of a relationship, where devastation and loss for one is freedom and inevitability for the other. Â 16 Pounds is a bleak, near-future look at water scarcity; BFF is the stage adaptation of LaBute’s short film about three “friends†?; Black Girls takes a white guy and a black girl through a wildly uncomfortable conversation; Some White Chick and The Unimaginable are two chillers written for Southwark Playhouse’s TERROR! Festival; and the monologue Totally is a young woman’s sex revenge confession like no other.

In All The Ways To Say I Love You, Neil LaBute’s “haunting, heartrending†? (AP) new play, Mrs. Johnson is a high school English teacher in a loving marriage. As she recounts her experiences with a favored student from her past, Mrs. Johnson slowly reveals the truth that is hidden just beneath the surface details of her life, in this riveting solo play about love, hard choices, and the cost of fulfilling an all-consuming desire. Two-time Tony winner Judith Light originated the role of Mrs. Johnson in a “full-throttle performance†? (Time Out NY) for the twice-extended Off Broadway premiere, at MCC in fall 2016.Also included is All My White Sins Forgiven, the evocative one-act companion play that gives depth and context to All The Ways To Say I Love You. In this engrossing two-hander, Mrs. Johnson’s husband, Eric, and his friend Todd banter, shoot hoops, and work their way around to talking some truth about their lives, their marriages, their children, and their own secrets and dreams. Rounding out the volume and an inspiration for the two plays is the short story “With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold,†? a masterfully crafted piece of prose that is pure Neil LaBute—as dark and timeless as any Grimm’s fairytale yet as chillingly modern as a teenage girl chatting with an anonymous new “friend†? on the Internet.

His girlfriend, Marie, by whom he’s fathered a child; Marie’s overpowering desire for the alluring Drum- Major; and the murderous outcome of this oppressive admixture of circumstances is without a doubt one of the bleakest works of world literature. It is also considered by many to mark the beginning of modern drama. In this powerful adaption, Neil LaBute embraces the glittering darkness of Woyzeck''s violent, erotic, inhumane world and uncompromisingly makes it his own. From his opening in an operating theatre and then scene by macabre scene, LaBute imbues this classic with his singular intensity and moral vision, as he takes it to its nightmarish conclusion. Included in this volume is Neil LaBute’s provocative new monologue “Kandahar,†? in which a soldier back from Afghanistan calmly explains his devastating actions of the day before. A gripping stand-alone piece, this short work is also a trenchant modern-day exploration of the potent and enduring themes of Woyzeck.

Things We Said Today features the scripts for Neil LaBute’s groundbreaking Directv project 10x10—a series of short films written and directed by LaBute based on ten compelling original monologues, five each for men and women.  Also included are five short plays displaying the power and scope of Neil LaBute’s creative vision. In Pick One, three white guys come up with a way to solve America’s problems; in The Possible one young woman seduces another’s boyfriend for an unexpected reason. Call Back features an actress and actor who spar about a past encounter that she, unnervingly, remembers much better than he does. Good Luck (In Farsi), “a pleasingly astringent study in competitiveness and vanity†? (The New York Times) has two actresses pulling out all the stops in a preaudition psych out; and in Squeeze Play a father and his son’s baseball coach strike a mutually beneficial deal. Rounding out the collection are two monologues commissioned as part of Centerstage’s “My America†? project.

From Across the Waters By Richard Neil LaBute Jr. Spanning a dramatic range of time, geography, and characters, From Across the Waters—a prequel novel to The Search—follows an ambitious American from boyhood to the highest offices of the U.S. Navy; a young Japanese woman who, through her faith, becomes much more than just a royal bride; and numerous conspirators and underlings on both sides of the Pacific. From Across the Waters is historical fiction at its finest, blending fact and fiction to transport the reader back to our own past, in all its complexity and beauty.

We Are All Small Once by Richard Neil LaBute Jr. A collection of touching farm stories, We Are Small Once beautifully depicts the process of growing up through the eyes of adorable farm animals. All of their stories are unique, but they all share one basic theme: we are all small once. Although life may throw many changes our way, we must remember the paths we’ve taken over our lives and be thankful for the journeys we have experienced. With the simple, but thought-provoking, reminder to view the world through young eyes, We Are Small Once invites the reader into a family farm full of wonder, hope, and gratitude.

Before acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute became the creator and showrunner of Syfy’s hit series Van Helsing, he had already adapted Dracula for the stage—with a fierce female Van Helsing as the vampire hunter. In this masterful adaptation, Neil LaBute brings a rich theatricality and his provocative way with language and story to the world of Count Dracula, Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and his beloved Mina—this time, with very much a mind of her own—infusing the classic gothic tale of terror, obsession, and pathos with a modern edge. Chilling yet stylish in its atmosphere, dark yet deeply human in its emotional impact, Neil LaBute’s Dracula: A Thriller in 2 Acts is a tribute to both LaBute’s dramatic vision and the timelessness of Stoker’s novel.

He tells her he’s finally left his wife to be with her, news to Velvet since she hasn’t seen him in years and is now friends with Fred’s recently married son. Hopes dashed, Fred engages Velvet in a mesmerizing conversation brimming with passion, remorse, humor, and anger. As power shifts and tension mounts, the young and beautiful Velvet and the older, volatile Fred revisit a shared history, and the twisted heart of their relationship is slowly revealed in a stunning climax. In this provocative two-hander, Neil LaBute continues to explore the nuances of gender relationships, creating a powerful work of sharp and subtle contrasts.

Stories from the award-winning director and playwright. “Labute’s smart, edgy offering delivers pleasures well beyond the time frame his title suggests.”—Booklist In Seconds of Pleasure, Neil LaBute brings to the page his cutting humor and compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Best known for his controversial plays and films, his short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Playboy. Seductive and provocative, each potent and pithy tale in Seconds of Pleasure finds men and women exploiting—or at the mercy of—the hidden fault lines that separate them: In “Time Share,” a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation; a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl in “Boo-Boo”; and a vain Hollywood actor gets his comeuppance in “Soft Target.” LaBute infuses Seconds of Pleasure with his trademark wit and black humor and unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor. “LaBute’s usual sleazy suspects are prepared to risk family, love, career, and freedom for the momentary satisfaction of their sometimes brutal desires. It will end badly, we know, and that’s what makes each dark tale as irresistible as good gossip. Fallibility and weakness, LaBute has demonstrated once again, have their own allure.”—Black Book “Seconds captures in print both the nuanced rhythms of contemporary speech and the pitfalls of dark I-Me-Mine gratification.”—LA Weekly “LaBute is a master at crafting shocking situations and nasty characters.”—Publishers Weekly

This powerful anthology brings together reflective and raw plays by American playwrights surrounding the psychic and political boundaries of the many faces and shadows of terrorism. Allan Havis''s introduction addresses a variety of terrorism cases from the last 25 years, examines several theories of the root causes of modern terrors, and underscores how theatre forms a unique contour to social and philosophical thought on terrorism. With a foreword from Robert Brustein, the anthology features: Break of Noon by Neil LaBute 7/11 by Kia Corthron Omnium Gatherum by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros Columbinus by PJ Paparelli and Stephen Karam Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang

Legacies Are Forever By: Richard Neil LaBute Jr. The conclusion to author Richard Neil LaBute Jr.’s exciting trilogy, following The Search and From Across the Waters, takes us to Japan, where young liberal heirs to centuries-old fiefdoms unite to bring about the end to the Tokugawa Shogunate. The two-hundred-fifty-year reign of Tokugawa military rule is over. The Restoration has brought the Meiji Emperor out of the secluded confines of Kyoto and back to the center of government and power in old Yedo, now Tokyo. The Sonno Joi, revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians movement has succeeded, yet failed. The Shogun is gone, but the hated bakufu, Tokugawa-era government bureaucrats, remain. Japan as a nation quickly sheds its medieval past, rapidly emulates, then seizes a place at the table of modern nations, much to the dismay and expense of its neighbors—north, south, west, and ultimately the United States and its possessions to the east. In Europe, Prussia, with the help of Bavaria, cements together a Germanic nation, as France tends to its colonies on many continents. The three-hundred-year-old Romanov Russian Empire teeters on the brink of disaster and revolution. Equally decrepit empires of the Ottoman Turks, Austro-Hungarians, and Ching Dynasty of China also near their end. The riddance of imperial overlords, national identity, and the power of the proletariat are themes du jour, of the day.

Against a glittering jazz-age backdrop, mistress of the house Julie and ambitious servant John face off in a gripping, night-long encounter. As the balance of power shifts often and dangerously—-sometimes with exquisite subtlety, sometimes stark brutality-—LaBute masterfully reinterprets Strindberg’s timeless erotic struggle between a man and a woman. This thrilling, essential Miss Julie, which had its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in 2013 with Lily Rabe as Julie, Logan Marshall-Green as John, and Laura Heisler as Kristine, superbly embodies both the passionate spirit of the original and the unflinching style of Neil LaBute.