Neil LaBute
LaBute in 2010
Born	Neil N. LaBute (1963-03-19)March 19, 1963 (age 62) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Alma mater	Brigham Young University University of Kansas
Occupations	Playwright film director screenwriter
Years active	1992–present
Spouse	Gia Crovatin (m. 2016)

Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963)^[1] is an American playwright, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for a play which he wrote and later adapted for film,In the Company of Men (1997) winning awards from theSundance Film Festival, theIndependent Spirit Awards, and theNew York Film Critics Circle. He wrote and directed the filmsYour Friends & Neighbors (1998),Possession (2002) (based on theA. S. Byatt novel),The Shape of Things (2003) (based on his play of the same name),The Wicker Man (2006),Some Velvet Morning (2013), andDirty Weekend (2015).

He directed the filmsNurse Betty (2000),Lakeview Terrace (2008), and the American adaptation ofDeath at a Funeral (2010). LaBute created the TV seriesBilly & Billie, writing and directing all of the episodes. He is also the creator of the TV seriesVan Helsing. He executive produced, co-directed, and co-wroteNetflix'sThe I-Land and he also directed several episodes for shows includingHell on Wheels andBillions.

LaBute was born inDetroit, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver.^[2][3] He is ofFrench Canadian, English, and Irish ancestry,^[3] and grew up inSpokane, Washington.^[4][5] He studied theater atBrigham Young University (BYU) inProvo, Utah where he joinedthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). At BYU, he also met actorAaron Eckhart, who later played leading roles in several of his films. LaBute produced a number of plays which pushed the envelope of what was acceptable at the conservative religious university, some of which were shut down after their premieres. However, he also was honored as being one of the "most promising undergraduate playwrights" at the BYU theater department's annual awards.^[6] Labute did graduate work at theUniversity of Kansas inLawrence,^[7]New York University inManhattan,^[7] and he participated in a writing workshop atLondon's Royal Court Theatre.^[7]

LaBute burst onto the theater scene in 1989 with his controversial debutFilthy Talk for Troubled Times.^[8] His interest in the film industry came with a viewing ofThe Soft Skin (La Peau Douce 1964), said the director toRobert K. Elder in a 2011 interview forThe Film That Changed My Life.^[9]

It exposed me, probably in the earliest way, to "Hey, I could do that." I've never been one to love the camera or even to be as drawn to it as I am to the human aspect of it, and I think it was a film that speaks in a very simple way of here's a way that you can tell a story on film in human terms. It was the kind of film that made me go, 'I could do this; I want to tell stories that are like this and told in this way'.... so it was altering for me in that way, in its simplicity or deceptive simplicity.^[10]

In 1993, he returned to BYU to premiere his playIn the Company of Men, for which he received an award from theAssociation for Mormon Letters. He taught drama and film atIndiana University-Purdue Fort Wayne inFort Wayne, Indiana, in the early 1990s where he adapted and filmed the play, shot over two weeks and costing $25,000, beginning his career as a film director. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at theSundance Film Festival, and major awards and nominations at theDeauville Film Festival, theIndependent Spirit Awards, theThessaloniki Film Festival, theSociety of Texas Film Critics Awards, and theNew York Film Critics Circle.

In the Company of Men portrays two businessmen (one played by Eckhart) cruelly plotting to romance and emotionally destroy a deaf woman. His next filmYour Friends & Neighbors (1998), with an ensemble cast including Eckhart andBen Stiller, received anR-rating due to its portrayal of the sex lives of three yuppie couples in the big city.

His playBash: Latter-Day Plays is a set of three short plays (Iphigenia in Orem,A Gaggle of Saints, andMedea Redux) depicting essentially goodLatter-day Saints doing disturbing and violent things.^[11] It ran Off-Broadway at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in 1999.Medea Redux is a one-person performance byCalista Flockhart.^[7][11][12] The play resulted in his beingdisfellowshipped from the LDS Church (i.e., losing some privileges of church membership without being excommunicated). He has since formally left the LDS Church.^[13]

In 2001, LaBute wrote and directed the playThe Shape of Things, which premièred in London, featuring film actorsPaul Rudd andRachel Weisz. It was turned into a film in 2003 with the same cast and director. Set in a small university town in theMidwest, it focuses on four young students who become emotionally and romantically involved with each other, questioning the nature of art and the lengths to which people will go for love. Weisz's character manipulates Rudd's character into changing everything about himself and discarding his friends in order to become more attractive to her. She even pretends to fall in love with him, prompting an offer of marriage, whereupon she cruelly exposes and humiliates him before an audience, announcing that he has simply been an "art project" for herMFAthesis.

In 2001, LaBute and producerGail Mutrux founded the Pretty Pictures firm, with a first-look deal at USA Films.^[14] LaBute's 2002 playThe Mercy Seat was a theatrical response to theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks.^[15][16] Set on September 12, it concerns a man who worked at theWorld Trade Center but was away from the office during the infamous 2001 terrorist attack – with his mistress. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, he contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover. StarringLiev Schreiber andSigourney Weaver, the play was a commercial and critical success.^[17] While hesitant to termThe Mercy Seat "political theater", Labute said, "I refer to this play in the printed introduction as a kind of emotional terrorism that we wage on those we profess to love." He dedicated the edition toDavid Hare, in response to Hare's "straightforward, thoughtful, probing work".^[18]

His next play,Reasons to Be Pretty, played Off-Broadway from May 14 to July 5, 2008, in a production byMCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. It ran onBroadway in 2009, with previews at theLyceum Theatre beginning March 13, and its opening on April 2. The play was nominated for three 2009Tony Awards includingBest Play,Best Leading Actor in a Play (Thomas Sadoski), andBest Featured Actress in a Play (Marin Ireland), but did not win in any category. The production's final performance was on June 14.^[19] In March 2013, the play was mounted at theSan Francisco Playhouse inSan Francisco.^[20]

In 2010, LaBute directedDeath at a Funeral, a remake of a2007 British film of the same name. It was written byDean Craig (who also wrote the original screenplay) and starredChris Rock. Throughout the decade, various productions of his existing works were mounted as he continued to produce new material. He wrote new scenes and an introduction for theChicago Shakespeare Theater production ofThe Taming of the Shrew byWilliam Shakespeare which ran from April 7 to June 6, 2010. LaBute framed the classic play in overtlymetatheatrical terms, adding a lesbian romance subplot. His short play,The Unimaginable, premiered as part of the Terror 2010 season at theSouthwark Playhouse in London, October 12–31, 2010.

LaBute's first produced play,Filthy Talk for Troubled Times (1989), which was a series of biting exchanges between two "everyman" characters in a bar, was staged from June 3–5, 2010, byMCC Theater as a benefit for MCC's Playwrights' Coalition and their commitment to developing new work. He also directed the reading. Originally when it premiered in Manhattan, New York at the Westside Dance Project, "[legend] has it... that one unimpressed member of the audience shouted: "Kill the playwright!""^[21]

The Break of Noon premiered Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in an MCC Theater production on October 28, 2010 (previews), running to December 22, 2010.^[22] The play then opened in 2011 in Los Angeles at the Geffen Theater for a second time directed byJo Bonney, with a January 25 preview and opening on February 2. It ran through March 6. It featuredTracee Chimo,David Duchovny,John Earl Jelks, andAmanda Peet.^[23]

LaBute took part in London'sBush Theatre's 2011 projectSixty Six Books, for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of theBible.^[24] In 2012, he joined theChicago-based storefront theatre company,Profiles Theatre as a Resident Artist.^[25]The Way We Get By opened Off-Broadway at theSecond Stage Theater on May 19, 2015, starringAmanda Seyfried andThomas Sadoski with direction byLeigh Silverman.^[26]

The LaBute New Theater Festival is a festival of world premiere one-act plays which is produced by William Roth^[27] and St. Louis Actors' Studio each summer at their Gaslight Theater inSt. Louis, Missouri^[28] and each winter at 59E59 street theaters in New York.^[29] In 2013,Some Girl(s) was directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer, with the screenplay adapted by Labute from his 2005 play. In an interview with Sam Weisberg of Screen Comment, he said: "I have had a lot of people direct my material for the theater, but I haven't had anyone do my work on film. I was excited by what would be brought to it. It was great to have someone else in there that you could trust visually and intellectually and emotionally to make something that was respectful of the material but also creative."^[30]

In August 2016, theUtah Shakespeare Festival inCedar City produced a preview of LaBute's playHow to Fight Loneliness and announced its intention to stage the play during its 2017 summer season.^[31] In February 2018, MCC Theater terminated its relationship with him ending his place as their playwright-in-residence and their plans to produce his next playReasons to Be Pretty Happy in the summer. Blake West, MCC Theater's executive director, said, “We’re committed to creating and maintaining a respectful and professional work environment for everyone we work with.”^[32] In September 2018, it was announced thatNetflix had given order for the production of thescience fiction miniseriesThe I-Land. LaBute is credited as the showrunner and executive producer of the miniseries.^[33] The miniseries premiered on September 12, 2019.^[34]

Critics have responded to his plays saying they have amisanthropic tone.^[35][36][37] Rob Weinert-Kendt inThe Village Voice referred to LaBute as "American theater's reigning misanthrope".^[38]The New York Times said that critics labeled him a misanthrope upon the release of his filmYour Friends & Neighbors because of the film's strong misanthropic plot and characters.^[39] Britain'sIndependent newspaper in May 2008 dubbed him "America's misanthrope par excellence".^[40] Citing the misanthropic tone of the plot in the filmsIn the Company of Men,Your Friends & Neighbors, andThe Shape of Things, film critic Daniel Kimmel identified a pattern running through LaBute's work of being that the unlikeable, main antagonists of those three films end up getting away with their lying, scheming and mis-deeds, coming out on top of all the other characters as the real winners of those stories by quoting: "Neil LaBute is a misanthrope who assumes that only callous and evil people, who use and abuse others, can survive in this world." Critics labeled him amisogynist after the release ofIn the Company of Men.^[39]

Neil was married to Lisa Gore LaBute, with whom he has two adult children. He and actressGia Crovatin married in 2016.^[41]

In 2013, LaBute was named one of the winners of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters' Arts and Letters Awards in Literature.^[42] He became a Fellow of the International Association of Theatre Leaders (IATL) in 2023.^[43]

LaBute's style is very language-oriented. His work 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.^[44]

• Filthy Talk For Troubled Times (1989)
• In the Company of Men (1992)
• Bash: Latter-Day Plays (1999)
• The Shape of Things (2001)
• The Distance From Here (2003)
• The Mercy Seat (2003)
• Autobahn (2003)
• Fat Pig (2004)
• This Is How It Goes (2005)
• Some Girl(s) (2005)
• Wrecks (2005)
• In a Dark Dark House (2007)
• Reasons to Be Pretty (2008)
• Helter Skelter/Land of the Dead (2008)
• The Break of Noon (2009)
• The New Testament (2009)
• Some White Chick (2009)
• The Furies (2009)
• Strange Fruit (2011)
• In a Forest, Dark and Deep (2011)
• Lovely Head & Other Plays (2013)
• Reasons to Be Happy (2013)
• Old Boyfriend (2014)
• Money Shot (2014)
• Exhibit 'A': Short Plays and Monologues (2015)
• The Way We Get By (2015)
• All The Ways To Say I Love You (2016)
• How to Fight Loneliness (2017)
• True Love Will Find You in the End (2020)
• The Answer to Everything (2021)
• St. Louis (TBA)

• Neil LaBute atIMDb
• Neil LaBute at theInternet Broadway Database
• Neil LaBute at theInternet Off-Broadway Database (archived)

• 1963 births
• Living people
• 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
• American people of English descent
• American people of French-Canadian descent
• American people of Irish descent
• American male screenwriters
• Brigham Young University alumni
• Former Latter Day Saints
• Independent Spirit Award winners
• Writers from Detroit
• Writers from Spokane, Washington
• Writers from Utah
• Film directors from Michigan
• American male dramatists and playwrights
• Screenwriters from Utah
• 20th-century American male writers

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