About the Play:

The Break of Noon has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.

The Break of Noon is a full-length drama by Neil LaBute. Amidst the chaos and horror of a gruesome office shooting, the sole survivor believes he heard the voice of God during the massacre. He tries to navigate through his life and relationships with his newly found faith, to discover why. Break of Noon explores the narrow path to spiritual fulfillment and how strewn it is with the funny, frantic failings of humankind.

The Break of Noon is about the aftermath of an office massacre that kills 37 people but spares the life of one man. What if God told you to be a better person but the world wouldn't allow it? Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, an ordinary low-level office manager who survives the worst office shooting in American history and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be a divine vision. Amidst the chaos and horror of the shooting, John sees the face of God. His modern-day revelation creates a maelstrom of disbelief among everyone he knows. A newcomer to faith, John urgently searches for a modern response to the age-old question: at what cost salvation? His journey toward personal enlightenment – past greed and lust and the other deadly sins – is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane, and heartbreaking. Grappling with issues such as workplace gun violence and the meaning of religion, The Break of Noon examines how modern-day miracles are perceived in a skeptical world.

The Break of Noon premiered in 2010 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre off-Broadway in New York City followed by it’s West Coast premiere in 2011 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"Unsettles exactly as it should…A nifty coup de théâtre that demands that you rethink everything you've seen up to that point." — New York Times

"A darkly comic morality tale." — New York Post

"Neil LaBute has done something quite different in this new play: He's created what basically amounts to a Rorschach test of faith." — Associated Press

"Molière's Tartuffe, a world classic, [is] also based on a transparently obnoxious oaf who parks himself in his gullible friend's home, against the redundant and increasingly desperate advice of the host's family, before trying to marry his host's daughter while seducing his wife … Through all of this, Tartuffe claims to be a humble representative of God, while preaching the gospel of his personal salvation — much like LaBute's protagonist … LaBute, like Molière, is a national class clown, a satirist hurling barbs at sundry hypocrisies, and our inability to know the truth, let alone to tell it … LaBute is not Molière reincarnated, but their plays share a proclivity for cruelty and for trying to fathom why and how people lie—not only to each other, but to themselves." — L.A. Weekly

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.