Search results for ""Author Neil Labute""

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 première of The Shape of Things was presented at the Almeida, London, in May 2001.

Read more less

'LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don't like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.' NewsdayObsession with surface and secrets runs through this second collection of Neil LaBute's work. The Shape of Things peels back the skin of modern-day relationships to ask how far someone might change themselves for love, or for art. In Fat Pig, a man confronts his friends' - and his own - fixation with Hollywood ideals of beauty when he falls for a 'plus size' young woman. In a Dark Dark House and In a Forest, Dark and Deep are twin tales of sibling conflict. In the first, estranged brothers must reconcile conflicting memories, after one asks for corroboration of childhood abuse. In the second, a man's offer to help his sister clear out her cottage brings a terrible confession into the light.The Shape of Things'What initially seems a touching study of student romance develops instead into a passionate discussion about the way art feeds on life.' Daily TelegraphFat Pig'As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.' VarietyIn a Dark Dark House'LaBute toys with expectations and takes pleasure in our discomfort... The play does lead to a pretty dark place - but the ending is not without hope.' Daily MailIn a Forest, Dark and Deep 'It is billed as being about sibling rivalry, but in fact majors on far deeper, dangerous things: the yearning to be understood, female manipulation, and fascinated male disgust at a sister's lurid sexuality.' The Times

Read more less

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.

Read more less

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 2012-13 as part of Theatre Uncut; The Wager, the stage version of the film Double or Nothing starring Adam Brody; the two-handers A Guy Walks Into a Bar, Over the River and Through the Woods, and Strange Fruit; and two powerful new monologues, Bad Girl and The Pony of Love.

Read more less

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.

Read more less

Three years after a difficult breakup, Steph and Greg are wondering if they can start over again. The trouble is, she's married someone else and he's started a relationship with her best friend Carly. Meanwhile, Carly's ex-husband Kent wants her back, and even more so when he hears about her new romance with his best friend Greg. As emotions run high, all four find themselves entangled in a web of hidden agendas and half-truths in their pursuit of a happy life.A companion piece to the acclaimed Reasons to Be Pretty, Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Happy received its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2016.

Read more less

Greg is overheard admitting that his girlfriend Steph is no beauty, but that he wouldn't change her for the world. She is devastated; he can't see what he's done wrong. Meanwhile, Greg's friend Kent alternates between boasting about how gorgeous his wife Carlyis and chasing after a hot new colleague.The final part of Neil LaBute's 'beauty trilogy' (following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig) about society's obsession with looks, Reasons to Be Pretty premiered in the UK at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 2011.'[The Shape of Things] is LaBute's thesis on extreme feminine wiles, as well as a disquisition on how far an artist can go in the name of art . . . Like a chiropractor for the soul, LaBute is looking for realignment, listening for the crack.' Elle'A heart-warming tale from America's master misanthrope.' Independent on Fat Pig

Read more less

Neil LaBute's Bash is a collection of three darkly brilliant one-act plays.In 'Medea Redux', a woman tells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her junior high-school English teacher.In 'Iphigenia in Orem', a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing to an especially chilling crime.In 'A Gaggle of Saints', a young Mormon couple separately recount the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City.All three are unblinking portraits of the evils that are abroad in everyday life; each is distinguished by the raw and yet lyrical intensity that has become Neil Labute's signature.

Read more less

Filthy Talk for Troubled Time is one of his 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 and hatred. 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.

Read more less

Before acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute became the creator and showrunner of Syfy's new hit series Van Helsing, he had already adapted Bram Stoker's 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 powerful and provocative way with language and story to the world of Count Dracula, Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and his beloved Mina—this time, with 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 Two Acts is a tribute to both Neil LaBute's dramatic vision and the timelessness of Stoker's novel.

Read more less

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

Read more less