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 ad...

St. Louis Actors' Studio (STLAS) and esteemed film director, screenwriter and playwright Neil LaBute publish a new book, "Unlikely Japan and Other Plays: Ten One-Acts from Ten Years of the LaBute New Theater Festival". Since 2014, STLAS has worked with LaBute to produce the annual festival bearing his name celebrating new works by emerging professional and high school playwrights, as well as a new piece penned each year by LaBute himself. In honor of a decade of this successful collaborati...

A man and his mistress ponder their futures the day after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in this play by the author of Reasons to Be Pretty ."Neil LaBute is the first dramatist since David Mamet and Sam Shepard—since Edward Albee, actually—to mix sympathy and savagery, pathos and power." —Donald Lyons, New York PostIn a time of national tragedy, the world cha...

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. ...

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—in...

The title play, which had its American premiere at La MaMa in 2012, rivetingly explores the relationship between a nervous older man and a glib young prostitute, as their evening together drives toward a startling conclusion. Also included is the one-act play The Great War, which looks at a divorcing couple and the ground they need to cross to reach their own end of hostilities; In the Beginning, which was written as a response to the Occupy movement and produced around the world in 2012-1...

"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 LaButeBe 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 ...

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—...

What if God told you to be a better person but the world wouldn’t allow it?Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, a run-of-the-mill white-collar businessman who survives an office shooting and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be a divine vision. His journey toward personal enlightenment-past greed and lust and the other deadly sins-is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane, and heartbreaking.Exploring the narrow path to spiritual fulfillment and how strewn it is ...

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 e...

In the sequel to "reasons to be pretty," Greg, Steph, Carly, and Kent return a little older, but not necessarily wiser. And don’t worry if you haven’t met them before – there’s more than enough humor and humanity to usher you into the second act of their lives.Includes a backstage conversation with Neil LaBute and the cast.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast production featuring Jenna Fischer, Thomas Sadoski, Gia Crovatin, and Josh Stamberg.Written and directed by Neil ...

It’s been years since either one’s had a hit, but the latest movie by a hot-shot European director could change that. The night before filming a big scene (that will undoubtedly assure them a spot back on the pop culture radar), Karen, her partner Bev, Steve, and his aspiring actress wife Missy meet in order to make an important decision: how far will they let themselves go to keep from slipping further down the Hollywood food chain? Sexy, daring, darkly hilarious—and Neil LaBute’s first o...