Jim Neu

James A. Neu (November 18, 1943 – July 19, 2010) was an American playwright who was best known for his quirky, experimental plays, many of which were staged Off-Off-Broadway.

Neu was born on November 18, 1943, in Brooklyn and moved to Huntington, New York with his family when he was seven years old. He graduated from State University of New York at Oneonta and was drafted into the United States Army, where he was stationed in South Korea during the Vietnam War. As he described in his biography, he was "unlucky enough to be drafted after graduating college, but lucky enough not to be sent to Viet Nam".

After completing his military service in 1967, he moved to Manhattan's Lower East Side, beginning a "quest for self" that many went through in that period. In what The New York Times called "a brief but engaging torrent of intriguing ideas and dizzying wordplay" that "rewards repeat viewing", his 2008 production of Gang of Seven directed by frequent collaborator Keith McDermott featured seven stage cliche characters who are part of a focus group for an unidentified product interacting with each other using marketing neologisms. Andrew Horn directed two screenplays he wrote, the feature films Doomed Love in 1983 and The Big Blue in 1988.

A resident of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Neu died at his home there at age 66 on July 19, 2010, due to lung cancer. He was survived by his wife, Carol Mullins.