New Releases by Neil Labute

Bash Three darkly brilliant one-act plays, unblinking portraits of the evils abroad in everyday life, first performed in 1999. 'You don't need to be familiar with Greek tragedy to admire LaBute's ability to illuminate the dark corners of the human mind . . . He writes with unblinking candour, unvarying incisiveness and the ear and eye for the tiny, telling fact that reveals a character floundering on the edge.' The Times Reasons to Be Pretty Nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, Reasons to Be Pretty explores love, language and power with fresh wit and insight. 'Neil LaBute at his best. It says things about love and betrayal that are rarely put on stage . . . The play has the transfixing nastiness that has made LaBute one of the most disturbing theatrical presences of the last decade. Yet it also has an unexpected ingredient: a beating heart.' Observer Now collected with its sequel, which follows the same four loveable characters - Reasons to Be Happy 'A richly entertaining shard of tragicomedy . . . a snap survey of American masculinity in crisis.' Daily Telegraph If I Needed Someone A drunken first date becomes an acutely observed dance of desire, expectation and consent. 'For all of its misunderstandings, misperceptions, and bristles, for all the insecurities and past hurt it opens for both characters, If I Needed Someone is the kind of first date that people looking for love dream of having.' Broadway World How to Fight Loneliness A married couple call on a third man to help them make a desperate decision, in this compelling and unsettling drama. How to Fight Loneliness received its UK premiere at the Park Theatre, London, in April 2025. 'A play that will force you to consider your own sense of mortality . . . starkly devastating.' Spectrum

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.

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.

'LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don't like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.' Newsday Obsession 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 Telegraph Fat Pig 'As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.' Variety In 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 Mail In 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

'LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don't like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.' Newsday Obsession 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 Telegraph Fat Pig 'As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.' Variety In 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 Mail In 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

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.

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 officially billed comedy—The Money Shot lands as sharp and hot as a paparazzo’s camera flash in a starlet’s eye.

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.

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.

Betty and Bobby are sister and brother, but they have little in common. She's a college professor with a prim demeanor, and he's a carpenter with a foul mouth and violent streak. Betty has a wild history that Bobby won't let her forget. Yet on the night when Betty urgently needs help to empty her cabin in the woods, she calls on Bobby. In this exhilarating play of secrets and sibling rivalry, LaBute unflinchingly explores the dark territory of "the lies you tell yourself to get by."

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.

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.

Lovely Head and Other Plays brings together Neil LaBute's most masterful and affecting recent shorter works. The title play 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 was written as a response to the Occupy movement and was produced around the world in 2012-13 as part of "Theatre Uncut."

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

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher* Since the ancient Greeks, actor's have been society's storytellers. And ever since Hollywood first left the backlot, these storytellers have been traveling to far-flung corners of the world to tell those tales. We decided to ask some of the most widely traveled people in the film industry to sit down and tell us their own stories - personal, inspiring, funny, embarrassing and human experiences from their time on the road. Lights, Camera ... Travel! includes 33 stories from screen stars including Alec Baldwin, Brooke Shields, Rolf de Heer, Paul Cox, Neil LaBute, Richard E Grant, Sandra Bernhard and Bruce Beresford. Edited by Andrew McCarthy and Don George About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places where they travel. TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia) *#1 in the world market share - source: Nielsen Bookscan. Australia, UK and USA. March 2012-January 2013 Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

THE STORY: A love story about the impossibility of love, REASONS TO BE PRETTY introduces us to Greg, who really, truly adores his girlfriend, Steph. Unfortunately, he also thinks she has a few physical imperfections, and when he casually mentions t

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.

Two short companion pieces. In a chic restaurant in New York city, a man and his wife meet to take a break from Christmas shopping. He doesn't know that she has already seen him today. Elsewhere in town, a couple part. He goes to the office, she visits a clinic. As events unfold, it becomes clear that this is not just any ordinary day.

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.

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.