About the Play:

The volume Lovely Head and Other Plays is a collection of one-act plays and short works by Neil LaBute. Trick or tryst? The title piece Lovely Head unveils the secrets of an obsessive recurrent rendezvous. When letting go is not an option. Also included is The Great War and some of his most masterful and affecting shorter works that are used as scene study vehicles in acting classes and workshops.

Lovely Head – the title is a double entendre – is a bizarre, contemporary love affair that starts off with what appears to be a straight forward transaction between a nervous older man and a glib young call girl who shows up at his apartment for what is apparently a regular appointment. But as the play goes on it gradually becomes something altogether different. The audience is forced to reassess what it sees before and realize that the relationship between the two is not as they thought. The surprises continue all the way to the end which sees the roles of the two characters entirely changed, if not reversed. This one-act play that had its American premiere off-off Broadway at New York's famed La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (La MaMa E.T.C.) in 2012. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

The Great War looks at the "divvying-up-the-goods" battle between a divorcing couple and the ground they need to cross to reach their own end of hostilities. A brutal and often hilarious battle of truths where divorce might just reveal more than we would prefer to admit. Lines drawn, gauntlets down, tongues sharpened as they reflect on 9 years of pretty much Hell and there's a surprise in store for one of them! The Great War will take no prisoners. This one-act play is his contribution to Ensemble Studio Theatre's (EST's) 1998 one-act-play marathon. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

In the Beginning is a 10-minute play that focuses on generational conflict reaching a breaking point between a long-suffering middle-class father and his wannabe-revolutionary student daughter, who relies on daddy's hard earned money to pay for her continued participation in demos and protests around the country. Can he finally draw the line? It was among the highlights of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and produced around the world in 2012-13 as part of the British-based collective "Theatre Uncut". (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

The Wager is the stage version of the film Double or Nothing starring Adam Brody. On their way home from a club in NYC, a resentful young guy abuses a wheelchair-bound homeless man to the increasing distress of the guy's girlfriend – but who's fooling whom? A game of chance quickly begins to escalate into something more dangerous. It's an awful story with a disturbingly satisfying conclusion. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

Plus three two-handers (A Guy Walks into a Bar; Over the River and Through the Woods; and Strange Fruit), and two powerful monologues (Bad Girl and The Pony of Love).

A Guy Walks into a Bar to find himself presented with a very tempting offer! When an attractive single girl offers an engaged man at a bar a no-strings attached one-night stand that will be their little secret, it seems too good to be true – and maybe it is! Are things as they seem or is he walking into a trap? (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

In Over the River and Through the Woods, a married woman faces a terrible choice when a teenage girl in her family comes to her with a claim she was abused as a child by the older woman's husband. Can she be trusted to do what is 'right'? (Cast: 2 female)

Strange Fruit is the story of two men, so very different, who fall deeply in love and plan to get married "the old-fashioned way" only to have their dream stymied when reality rears its ugly head. (Cast: 2 male)

What people say:

"Mr. LaBute is writing some of the freshest and most illuminating American dialogue to be heard anywhere these day." — The New York Times

"Neil LaBute is the most legitimately provocative and polarizing playwright at work today."— The New Yorker

"The play twists continually, and the truth is always one twist away. LaBute is such a skillful writer — edgy, funny, outrageous...." — Financial Times

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.