"The Mercy Seat (play) The Mercy Seat is a 2002 play by Neil LaBute that was among the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Set on September 12, it concerns Ben, a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack, with his mistress, Abby, who is also his boss. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, Ben contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover. Though urban legends of a similar adulterous situation circulated"
"Some Girl(s) Some Girl(s) is a play written by Neil LaBute about a man only identified as ""Man"" who is about to get married. Before his wedding, he decides to visit his ex-girlfriends, all of whom he mistreated. His exes include: Sam, his former high school sweetheart; Lindsay, a college professor from Boston; Tyler, his Chicago fling; and Bobbi, a woman from Los Angeles whom he actually could have ended up with. The play opened in London in May 2005 at the Gielgud Theatre. The cast included David Schwimmer in the lead role, Catherine Tate, Lesley Manville, Saffron Burrows and"
"Fat Pig Fat Pig is an American play by Neil LaBute. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 2004 and won the 2005 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. The play had its London premiere in 2008 and was nominated for Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. The play involves a romantic relationship between a plus-size woman and a young professional man, whose friend denigrates the woman as being ""fat"". ""Fat Pig"" tells the story of Tom, a stereotypical professional businessman in a large city, who falls for a very plus-size librarian named Helen. They meet in a crowded"
"2003. Directed by LaBute, the cast starred Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver. It was both a commercial and critical success (it sold out for the length of its run). The play, which ""requires almost a nonstop output of high-octane emotion,"" was an emotionally draining experience for Weaver and Schreiber. Weaver (who had already appeared in the 9/11-themed play ""The Guys"") admitted that ""It takes its toll...It's hard to be that rough to each other, it's hard to be those characters, and it's hard to be that rough to the world situation...But I must say, as well as shocking, [the play]"
"London's Almeida Theatre from November 2008 to January 2009. Director Michael Attenborough worked with LaBute to create a substantially different version of the play to the one that originally premiered in New York. The revised version of the play made its West Coast premiere at The Matrix Theatre Company, Los Angeles, California, in July and August 2014. The reviewer for ""The Hollywood Reporter"" wrote: ""It's among LaBute's most nakedly personal examinations of stunted males enmeshed in conflicts of intimacy, so much so that it almost self-consciously plays out as his own variation on motifs familiar from one of his most"
"Extremities (play) Extremities is an off Broadway play by William Mastrosimone and directed by Robert Allan Ackerman. It opened at the Westside Theatre in New York on December 22, 1982 and ran for 325 performances. A young woman, Marjorie, is attacked in her home by a would-be rapist, Raul, and manages to turn the tables on him, tying him up in her fireplace. Her roommates come home to discover the attacker bound with cords, belts and other household items. Terry and Patricia, the roommates, express different points of view about rape in society. Terry, a rape victim herself as a"
"gives up, and both her dreams, however delusional, and her tough, oppositional spirit remain unspoiled even by the end of the play."" It contained the first ever reference in theatre to Osama bin Laden where a character said that the whole country needed to be bombed by him to teach us all what suffering was. The play premiered at Royal Court on 12 September 2001 (the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center), receiving gasps from the audience. The production is well known for its use of the downstairs stage at Royal court where the overhead arch had"
"Neil LaBute Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best-known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ""In the Company of Men"" (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the New York Film Critics Circle. He wrote and directed the films ""Your Friends & Neighbors"" (1998), ""Possession"" (2002) (based on the A.S. Byatt novel), ""The Shape of Things"" (2003) (based on his play of the same name), ""The Wicker Man"" (2006), ""Some Velvet Morning"" (2013), and ""Dirty Weekend"""
"RolePlay (play) RolePlay is a 2001 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the third in a trilogy of plays called ""Damsels in Distress"" (""GamePlan"" and ""FlatSpin"" being parts one and two). It is about an engaged couple, Julie-Ann Jobson and Justin Lazenby whose engagement party is interrupted by unexpected intrusions. ""Damsels in Distress"" was originally intended to be only a pair of plays: ""GamePlan"" and ""FlatSpin"". However, during early preparations, Ayckbourn had an idea for a third play, ""RolePlay"". When the cast agreed to the third play, the end of the Stephen Joseph Theatre's 2001 season was altered to accommodate"
"shocking portrayal of the sex lives of three yuppie couples in the big city. His play """" is a set of three short plays (""Iphigenia in Orem"", ""A Gaggle of Saints"", and ""Medea Redux"") depicting essentially good Latter-day Saints doing disturbing and violent things. It ran Off-Broadway at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in 1999. ""Medea Redux"" is a one-person performance by Calista Flockhart. This play resulted in his being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church (i.e., losing some privileges of church membership without being excommunicated). He has since formally left the LDS Church. In 2001, LaBute wrote and directed the play"
"wearily will depend on your familiarity with, and fondness for, the prolific Mr. LaBute’s bleak moral vision of humankind."" The Off-Broadway production received nominations: 2007 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Solo Show; 2007 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Solo Performance (Ed Harris); and 2007 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Solo Performance (Ed Harris). Wrecks Wrecks is a one-man play by Neil LaBute, that was commissioned and produced by the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland. The play was a part of the city's Capital of Culture programme in 2005. ""Wrecks"" premiered in the United States Off-Broadway at the Public Theater on October"
"the play takes place in 1994–1995 and focuses on a period in the 1990s marked by devastating armed conflicts, genocide and wars. The action alternates between parallel events in Washington, D.C., London, Sarajevo, Kigali, Grozny, etc. Towards the end of part two, the action moves to the years 2001 and 2004, briefly covering the September 11 attacks and the battle for Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. In the opening scene, which takes place in 1995, we meet Alan, Nola and Kay outside a church in London, where the funeral of their father and husband Joseph Zimmer is about to take place."
"The Guys The Guys is a play by Anne Nelson about the aftereffects of the collapse of the World Trade Center. In the play, Joan, an editor, helps Nick, an FDNY captain, prepare the eulogies for an unprecedented number of firefighters who died under his command that day. The play debuted off-Broadway at The Flea Theater on December 4, 2001, directed by Jim Simpson and starring Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray. Since 2001, ""The Guys"" has been presented in 48 US states and in the Czech Republic, Argentina, Japan, Italy and Poland. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon presented it at"
"premiere at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington in October 2003. ""The origins of the play date to the morning of September 11, 2001."" Rebeck: ""We [Gersten-Vassilaros] were on the phone with each other during the catastrophe, then the phones all went out and we couldn't talk for days... And when we reconnected after 9-11 we both felt right away that we wanted to engage in it as writers."" The two finally decided that a dinner party ""would be the best vehicle for the play's commentary about the world after Sept. 11."" Gersten-Vassilaros: ""You have people arguing with each other, but"
"shortly before 11 September. His other recent plays include ""Albert Speer"" (2000) and ""Playing with Fire"" (2005), both of which premiered at the Royal National Theatre, in London. ""Albert Speer"", based on Gitta Sereny's biography of Adolf Hitler's chief architect, munitions minister, and friend Albert Speer, and other historical biographies and documents, focuses on Speer's imprisonment, release, and personal struggle to overcome his denial of the Holocaust. ""Playing with Fire"", a play about the politics of New Labour, multiculturalism, and ethnic tensions in the north of England, has been produced both on stage and in an adaptation for radio. ""Testing"
"Sam later. It turns out that Sam, the heavies and the flat are all part of an elaborate drugs sting due to take place that evening. With Rosie having shown herself to the drug courier they intend to entrap, Rosie is talked into doing the sting herself. RolePlay was the play written as the afterthought, but turned out to be the most successful play of the three. The play centres on a dinner party held by Justin Lazenby and Julie-Ann Jobson, where they intend to announce their engagement. Before the dinner begins, there are already signs of tension: Julie-Ann gets"
"is terse, rhythmic, and highly colloquial. His style bears similarity to one of his favorite playwrights, David Mamet. LaBute even shares some similar themes with Mamet including gender relations, political correctness, and masculinity. Neil LaBute Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best-known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ""In the Company of Men"" (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the New York Film Critics Circle. He wrote and directed the films ""Your Friends & Neighbors"""
"as a play titled ""The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs"" in which Close starred Off-Broadway in 1982 and for which she won an Obie Award for Best Actress. Albert Nobbs is a butler at the Morrison Hotel in late-19th-century Dublin, Ireland; his boss is Mrs Baker. Although biologically female, Albert has spent the last 30 years living as a man. He has also been secretly saving money to buy a tobacconist shop to gain some measure of freedom and independence. Recently unemployed Joe Mackins arrives at the hotel and cons his way into a boilerman job. He and a maid"
"who is married and has no children. The woman then describes how she murdered her son, without giving the audience any clear motive for the act, but presumably because she knows that it will cause her former teacher pain even though it is clear from her descriptions that she also dearly loves her child. Bash: Latter-Day Plays bash: latterday plays is a collection of three dark one-act plays written by Neil LaBute. Each play is an exploration of the complexities of evil in everyday life, and two of the works, ""iphigenia in orem"" and ""medea redux"" have direct Greek influence,"
"again directed by Jo Bonney, with 25 January preview and opening on February 2. It ran through March 6. It featured Tracee Chimo, David Duchovny, John Earl Jelks, and Amanda Peet. ""The Unimaginable"", a short play by LaBute, premiered as part of the Terror 2010 season at the Southwark Playhouse in London, UK from October 12 – 31, 2010. He also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project ""Sixty Six Books"", for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible. In 2012 Labute joined the Chicago-based storefront theatre company, ""Profiles Theatre"" as a"
"best known for her play ""The Women of Lockerbie"", a story about the aftermath of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, told in the form of a Greek tragedy. It was inspired by the laundry project undertaken by Lockerbie women, who washed the clothes of the victims and returned them to the families. In 2001 it won the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. It premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 by the New Group and Women’s Project. It was produced in London at the Orange Tree"
"here, including Mr. LaBute’s most sophisticated use of language thus far."" In a Dark Dark House In a Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. The play tells a tale of sexual and emotional abuse and two brothers who attempt to overcome it. ""In a Dark Dark House"" had its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in an MCC Theater production on May 16, 2007 and closed on July 7, 2007. Direction was by Carolyn Cantor with the cast that included Louisa Krause, Ron Livingston and Frederick Weller. The run was extended by two weeks"
"in May 2010). The plot was a little more provocative and ""risqué"" than most of those seen previously (including a debate about the ethics of procuring a fifteen-year-old as a sexual partner for a visiting dignitary, a proposition which it is suggested might be spun in the national interest as a ""euro-job"") and included some stronger expletives (reflecting perhaps their widely reported use among New Labour's hierarchy between 1997 and 2010). There was also a higher element of traditional farce. The play began a tour of the United Kingdom in February 2011, with Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey Appleby, Richard"
"direct influences, Sam Shepard."" The play takes place ""on the grounds of a psychiatric facility."". It involves two brothers: Terry, in his late thirties and Drew, in his mid-thirties, and a girl, Jennifer, in her teens. Drew, a disbarred lawyer, is a patient at the hospital. The title is ""lifted"" from a section of the Ingmar Bergman film ""Scenes from a Marriage."" Ben Brantley, in his review for ""The New York Times"", wrote: ""At its most basic, the plot of “House” becomes another LaButean exploration of how people use and betray one another. But there are subtler forces at work"
"reprising their roles. The Laramie Project The Laramie Project is a 2000 play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project (specifically, Leigh Fondakowski, Stephen Belber, Greg Pierotti, Barbara Pitts, Stephen Wangh, Amanda Gronich, Sara Lambert, John McAdams, Maude Mitchell, Andy Paris, and Kelli Simpkins) about the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The murder was denounced as a hate crime and brought attention to the lack of hate crime laws in various states, including Wyoming. The play draws on hundreds of interviews conducted by the theatre company"
"This Is How It Goes This Is How It Goes is a play by Neil LaBute set in small town America, about the repercussions of an interracial love triangle. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 2005 and also was produced in the West End in 2005. High school sweethearts — the star of the high school track team (Cody) and a cheerleader (Belinda) — marry. He becomes a successful businessman; she's a stay-at-home mom. A high school acquaintance (Man) returns to town and rents the room over their garage and upsets the delicate balance of their relationship, raising questions about who"
"In a Dark Dark House In a Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. The play tells a tale of sexual and emotional abuse and two brothers who attempt to overcome it. ""In a Dark Dark House"" had its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in an MCC Theater production on May 16, 2007 and closed on July 7, 2007. Direction was by Carolyn Cantor with the cast that included Louisa Krause, Ron Livingston and Frederick Weller. The run was extended by two weeks ""due to popular demand"". A production of the play ran at"
"and defend their honour. ""Act 2: Italy, 1897"" Wilde is doing the one thing his friends wanted him to avoid, namely reuniting with the unbelievably selfish Bosie after his difficult two-year incarceration. Wilde, a broken man, is holed up in exile from the UK in a rat-infested hotel in Naples. The play was originally produced by the Almeida Theatre Company and premiered in London's Playhouse Theatre in the West End, where it ran from 12 March to 18 April 1998. It then transferred to Broadway in New York at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran from 23 April through 1"
"reversal, the two leads are Amy and Evan. ""The Shape of Things"" is published in an acting edition by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. The Shape of Things The Shape of Things is a 2001 play by American author and film director Neil LaBute and a 2003 American romantic drama film. It premièred at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2001 with Paul Rudd as Adam, Rachel Weisz as Evelyn, Gretchen Mol as Jenny, and Fred Weller as Phillip. The play was directed by LaBute himself. According to the author's instructions, it is to be performed without an interval or a curtain"
"Bash: Latter-Day Plays bash: latterday plays is a collection of three dark one-act plays written by Neil LaBute. Each play is an exploration of the complexities of evil in everyday life, and two of the works, ""iphigenia in orem"" and ""medea redux"" have direct Greek influence, specifically that of Euripides. In production, these three short mono-duet dramas are sometimes presented in varying orders and sometimes omitting one or two of the works. In publication, however, the plays are presented in the following order: ""iphigenia in orem"" followed by ""a gaggle of saints"" and concluding with ""medea redux"". The plays premiered"
"affinity towards Crisp during his childhood, as they faced similar problems as young homosexual people living in homophobic surroundings. Crisp was the subject of a play ""Resident Alien"" by Tim Fountain and starring his friend Bette Bourne in 1999. The play opened at the Bush Theatre in London and transferred to New York Theatre Workshop in 2001 where it won two Obies (for performance and design). It went on to win a Herald Angel (Best actor) at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. Subsequent productions have been seen across the US and Australia. A film of the same name was released"
"as very much a meditation on what is and is not true, on the ease of rushing to misjudgment, and also a further manifestation of the longstanding authorial fascination with the close link between deep intimacy and dark violence."" This production was followed by a Contemporary American Theater Festival (Shepherdstown, West Virginia) production as part of the 2012 Festival from 6 to 29 July 2012. In a Forest, Dark and Deep In a Forest, Dark and Deep is a play by Neil LaBute. It received its world premiere production in the West End's Vaudeville Theatre on 14 March 2011 following"
"the suicide of the daughter of one of the men. Subsequently, Ayckbourn had expressed a wish to write a female counterpart of this play. This was further encouraged by the continuing success of Stephen Mallatratt's adaptation of ""The Woman in Black"" (itself a heavy source of inspiration for ""Haunting Julia""). The success of this play, along with Yasmina Reza's ""'Art'"" also suggest that small-cast plays were becoming popular in commercial theatre. A further factor was Ayckbourn's move towards more contemporary issues – in particular ""GamePlan"", on the theme of teenage prostitution. This was the first play in the 2001 trilogy"