About the Play:

The Way We Get By is a full-length drama by Neil LaBute. This two-hander follows the aftermath of a one night stand between two guests who wake up together following a drunken wedding reception and share a very awkward morning-after conversation about sex, society, and how much they really care about what other people think.

The Way We Get By is set in New York. Middle of the night. Now. Meet Beth and Doug: two people who have no problem getting dates with their partners of choice. What they do have, however, is a very awkward encounter after spending one hot night together following a drunken wedding reception they both attended. 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 to question how much they really know about each other and how much they care about what other people think. Slyly profound and irresistibly passionate, Neil LaBute blends dark comedy with romantic optimism in his audacious tale of a very modern romance – a sharp, sexy, fresh look at love and lust and the whole damn thing.

The Way We Get By premiered in 2015 and enjoyed an extended run at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre in New York City.

Cast: 1 woman, 1 man

What people say:

"[LaBute] has done something unique to his brand of well-established playwriting genre; that is of the darkly cynical variety. The Way We Get By is a good play with an important conundrum (which I won't ruin for you), with a positive and hopeful ending, (that much I will ruin for you). It actually feels good in our ever wary world to see that problems, no matter how challenging, can be worked out and realized without the usual, ‘Maybe I should have slit my wrists long ago,' attitudes of characters with complex lives. After all, everything is complex these days." — Huffington Post

"Sexy, starry, dangerously irresistible! …[Neil LaBute] relishes the art of thwarting expectations." — The New York Times

"One-night stands often produce repercussions, but few are as emotionally fraught as the one depicted in Neil LaBute's [The Way We Get By]… the playwright's gift for amusing banter is very much on display." — Hollywood Reporter

"[Neil LaBute's] sometimes brutal wit has long been accompanied by an equally fierce moral curiosity…if we see Doug and Beth's struggle in the context of a world where everyone can seem to be in everyone else's business – especially when it's trivial – the focus is on two individuals trying to assess their own capacity for courage." — USA Today

About the Playwright:

Neil LaBute is an award-winning American playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. His plays include bash, Reasons to be Pretty (Tony Award nominated for best play), In a Forest, Dark and Deep, and Reasons to be Happy. His films include In the Company of Men (New York Critics' Circle Award for Best First Feature and the Filmmaker Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival), Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, Possession, The Shape of Things, Some Velvet Morning, and Dirty Weekend. He is a 2013 recipient of a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.