Neil LaBute directs this Hollywood remake of the 2007 British ensemble comedy farce. Comedian Chris Rock stars as Aaron, who is trying to get through his father's funeral in one piece despite the best efforts of his melodramatic mother (Loretta Devine), his baby-obsessed wife (Regina Hall) and his playboy brother (Martin Lawrence). Meanwhile, his father's secret gay lover (Peter Dinklage) turns up demanding money, and his beautiful cousin (Zoe Saldana) spends the day dodging her infatuated ex (Luke Wilson) while trying to look after her fiance (James Marsden) - who accidentally imbibed a hallucinogen while searching for a tranquiliser to calm his nerves.

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 with the funny, frantic failings of humankind, The Break of Noon showcases Neil LaBute at his discomfiting best.

It was so simple, just a few little bits in his diary, files that he kept in longhand with all his thoughts and wishes and dreams. Bobby thinks he's simply lending his sister a hand with clearing out her cottage in the forest. But it's a dark and stormy night and his sister has a secret. I know it can't be that bad, whatever was the reason this guy left here in such a hurry... In a Forest, Dark and Deep by Neil LaBute premiered at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in March 2011.

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.

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

'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"Seconds of Pleasure," acclaimed award-winning director and playwright 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.

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.

Belinda and Cody Phipps appear to be 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.

How far would you go for love? For art? What concessions would you make? What price would you be willing to pay? Such are the painful questions explored by Neil LaBute in his play and film The Shape of Things—a modern-day telling of the fall of man. After a chance meeting in a museum, Evelyn, a sexy, aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, become embroiled in an intense affair. Before long, it veers into the kind if dangerous, seductive territory that LaBute does best, as Adam, under Evelyn's steady influence, goes to unimaginable lengths to improve his appearance and character. Only in the final and shocking exhibition, which challenges out most deeply entrenched ideas about art and love, does Evelyn reveal her true intentions. This volume contains the original stage script for the play, which was also the basis for the film.

In a time if national tragedy, the world changes overnight. On September 12, 2001, Ben Harcourt finds himself in the downtown apartment of his lover, Abby Prescott—who also happens to be his boss. His endlessly ringing cell phone haunts their conversation as Ben and Abby explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they knew only yesterday. Will Ben let his family know he's alive, or will he and Abby take this chance to create a new life for themselves?

The Mercy Seat continues the brilliant American playwright Neil LaBute's unflinching fascination with the often harsh realities of the war between the sexes, brutally exploring whether one can be truly opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness.

A movie that drew rave reviews for its fearless and razor-sharp humor, Your Friends and Neighbors is a searing display of today's war between the sexes. Everywhere in the film's screenplay, we encounter the kind of wit used by great Restoration playwrights to expose the hypocrisies in male/female relationships.

Neil LaBute's debut feature, in the company of men, was described by Variety as "a dark, probing, truly disturbing exploration of yuppie angst and male anxieties." In Your Friends and Neighbors, male anxiety is again on show, but this time in a much wider context, revealing the rabid desires of all people—regardless of sex—to serve their own interests at any cost.

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.

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.

With the success of has first two films, In The Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, writer-director Neil LaBute has been hailed as a first-rate dramatic talent with a caustic wit reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick basic collection of three stunning one-act plays that mark LaBute's return to the New York stage after ten years -- forms a trio of unforgettable personal accounts: in Medea Redux, a woman cells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her grade school English teacher: in Iphigenia in Orem, a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing a most chilling crime; and in A Gaggle of Saints, a young Mormon couple separately recounts the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City. All three are unblinking portraits of the complexities of evil in everyday life, exhibiting this writer-director's raw lyrical intensity.

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 Carly is 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). An award-winning play from Neil LaBute that first staged on Broadway in 2009