William Missouri Downs

Playwright

2132 E. Curtis
Laramie, Wyoming 82072
(307) 742-8879
Downs@uwyo.edu
www.uwyo.edu/thd2/Downs/DOWNS.html

Bill has written 18 full length plays including Innocent Thoughts the winner of the National Playwrights Award, Jewish Sports Heroes and Texas Intellectuals which took first place at the Mill Mountain Theatre's Festival Of New Plays, and Kabuki Medea which won the Bay Area Critics Award for best production in San Francisco and the Jefferson Award for best production in Chicago. Bill has had nearly 100 productions from New York to Singapore and from Israel to South Africa, including LORT theatres like the Kennedy Center and the Berkeley Rep. In Hollywood he was a staff writer on the NBC sitcom My Two Dads (which starred Paul Reiser). He also wrote for Amen (Sherman Hemsley) and Fresh Prince Of Bel Air (Will Smith). After many years in Manhattan and Hollywood, Bill now enjoys living in the wide-open spaces of Wyoming.

Kosher Lutherans

Comedy
Kosher Lutherans is a comedy about an infertile Jewish couple and the inexplicable coincidences that shape our lives. One day their dreams are answered, they find a young pregnant girl from Iowa who is willing to let them adopt her out-of-wedlock baby. The only problem is the girl doesn't know they're Jewish. All she knows about Jews is what her farmer father told her, "They control Hollywood and killed Jesus." In an attempt not to blow the deal the couple pretend they're Lutherans and discover how far they are willing to go to have a family, but is it too far? (3 Women, 2 Men, Simple Set)

Dead White Males

Dark Comedy
Semi- Finalist in the Eugene O'Neill – Published by Playscripts Dead White Males is a contemporary, issue-oriented, dark-comedy about the religious right, our schools, and the politics of teaching. The play uses epic theatre staging techniques to tell the story of Janet Greenberg, a young, idealistic, first year teacher who struggles against a school board dominated by the religious right. They want to ban sex education, Holden Caulfield and evolution from the classroom. But more they want to put Christian prayer back in school. (4 Women – 3 Men – Simple Set)

Innocent Thoughts

Drama
1st Place The National Playwright's Award
Arlen Wienberg, a anthropologist, is called to be an expert witness in a murder trial. The accused: a white police officer. His alleged crime: murdering a black man twenty years ago and burying the bones in the dirt floor beneath his brownstone. When Arlen arrives, he is shocked to discover that the defense lawyer is black. Soon the two men discover that they know each other. They both grew up in the same suburb of Chicago. It wasn't an easy childhood. Ira was a gang member who often preyed on Jewish Boys, and Arlen was the perfect target. (1 White Man, 1 Black Man – Simple Set)

Jewish Sports Heroes & Texas Intellectuals

Comedy
1st Place - Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works - The Mill Mountain
Theatre Jewish Sports Heroes & Texas Intellectuals is a comedy about a woman who comes home to Texas to confront the dogma of her sexist, egotistical, cowboy, philosopher, non-Jewish father. Darla Cook has good news to tell her father. She has just been artificially inseminated. Tired of men in general and her father in particular she is going to have a child without any male contact whatsoever. When a stupid football player Johnny Galt arrives, it is discovered that he may be the sperm donor and Darla's day takes a turn for the worse. (2 Men - 1 Woman – Simple Set)