William Missouri Downs

Plays

(Please Note: All of these plays are copyrighted and cannot be produced without permission of the playwright.)

Downs@uwyo.edu

BOOKS ON TAPE – New!

(Full length - Romantic Comedy)

(a new comedy answers the three most important questions in life: Does god exist? What is your purpose? And what should you do when you’re charged with plagiarism?  The story revolves around a chance meeting at a Barnes and Noble between an actor who records books on tape and a makeup artist who loves to listen. Soon they set out to understand Mother Teresa, professional rodeo announcers, near death experiences, pigeons and their effect on jet engines, and how books on tape can fix our lives in twelve easy steps.)

COCKEYED

(Full length - Romantic Comedy – Published by Samuel French)

1ST PLACE - GreenHouse New Play Festival – HotCity Theatre St. Louis

(The story of an average philosophy major who is in love with the unattainable woman of his dreams. The only problem is that she looks right through him.)

FORGIVING JOHN LENNON – New!

(Full length - Dark Comedy/Drama)

(Two open-minded, liberal Professors get more than they had counted on when they decide to invite an Islamic poet from Somalia to speak on campus)

THE POLISH BOOK OF KARMA – New!

(Full length - Comedy)

(A daughter, educated at godless-liberal Harvard, comes home to visit her working-class, God-fearing, Polish family on the same weekend the Pope arrives in Chicago.)

KOSHER LUTHERANS

(Full length - Comedy – Published by Samuel French)

(Kosher Lutherans is about an infertile Jewish couple. 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.”.)

THE “M” WORD

(Full length - Dark Comedy/Drama)

(A Mormon English professor is assigned a gay teaching assistant)

SEAGULLS IN A CHERRY TREE

(Full length - A Comic Fantasia in the Chekhovian Style)

1ST PLACE - Larry Corse Prize for Playwriting

(Two Hollywood screenwriters are hired by Disney to adapt Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard into a new movie for Mel Gibson.)

JEWISH SPORTS HEROES & TEXAS INTELLECTUALS

(Full length - Comedy)

(1ST PLACE - Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works - The Mill Mountain Theatre)

(A daughter comes home to Texas to confront the dogma of her sexist-egotistical-cowboy-philosopher-father)

THE LITTLE TRAIN THAT COULD (BUT CHOSE NOT TO)

(Full length - Serious Comedy)

(A Politically Incorrect Children’s Book Author out of step with the world)

THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL

(Full length - Drama)

(A Play Based On The Actual Transcripts Of The Scopes Trial)

NIGHTS AT THE ROUND TABLE

(Full length - Comedy)

(About Love, Politics and Iowa)

INNOCENT THOUGHTS

(Full length - Drama)

1ST PLACE - NATIONAL PLAYWRIGHTS AWARD The Unicorn Theatre in Kansas

(The relationship Between Blacks And Jews in America)

DEAD WHITE MALES

(Full length - Dark Comedy - – Published by PlayScripts)

SEMI-FINALIST IN THE EUGENE O'NEILL

(A Jewish Teacher, The Religious Right and Teaching In America)

HEADSET: A View From The Light Booth

(Full length - Farce)

(About Technical Theatre)

CHASING PIRANDELLO

(Full length - Comedy)

(A sitcom writer tries to write as well as Pirandello)

A DOLL HOUSE

By Henrik Ibsen

(A New Adaptation)

KABUKI MEDEA

(A kabuki Medea)

BAY AREA CRITICS AWARD For best production of the year in San Francisco

JEFFERSON AWARD - For best production of the year in Chicago

KABUKI FAUST

(A kabuki Faust)

LITTLE FAMILY SECRETS

(Dark Comedy)

(A Dysfunctional Flint Family and the death of Detroit.)

MY LAUGHING YEARS

(Comedy)

(There Is Nothing Funny About Getting Old)