MCC Terminates Neil LaBute's Tenure as Playwright is Residence; Cancels REASONS TO BE PRETTY HAPPY

MCC Theater just released the following statement concerning its playwright-in-residence, Neil LaBute:

MCC Theater is canceling the upcoming production of Reasons to be Pretty Happy by Neil LaBute and is terminating his tenure as its playwright-in-residence, effective immediately. The Theater will be announcing a new play to complete the current season in the coming weeks.

Neil LaBute, MCC's Playwright-in-Residence, has premiered 10 of his plays at MCC during the course of his illustrious career, most recently in Fall 2016 with his dazzling All The Ways To Say I Love You, featuring Judith Light's solo tour de force performance. During his 15-year collaboration with MCC, LaBute has also premiered his seminal plays: Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, The Distance from Here, and reasons to be pretty, the latter of which transferred to Broadway and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.

MCC is one of New York's leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, the tenets of collaboration, education, and community are at the core of MCC Theater's programming. One of the only theaters in the country led continuously by its founders, Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, and William Cantler, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater's celebrated productions include Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike; Robert Askins' Hand to God; John Pollono's Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo's Really Really; Sharr White's The Other Place (Broadway transfer); a fully reimagined version of the legendary musical Carrie; Jeff Talbott's The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Michael Weller's Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride; Bryony Lavery's Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award nominations including Best Play, Tony Award for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson's Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and ten plays by Playwright-in-Residence Neil LaBute, including Reasons to Be Happy, reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and most recently All The Ways To Say I Love You. Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world.