HOW TO STEAL A PICASSO

 

“A farce with an edge!” – The Kansas City Star

 

“The energy of a pinball machine, all flashing lights and erratic chimes and emotions that pivot with the stroke of a flipper… How to Steal a Picasso is unapologetically zany, but Downs finds time to toss a few telling contradictions into the fray.” - Kansas City Pitch

 

“Amid all the crazy plot turns, Downs finds opportunities to make valid statements about our perceptions of art, delusional self-styled “artists” and how art has lost any meaning beyond its value as a commodity.” – The Kansas City Star

 

"How to Steal a Picasso keeps the audience laughing… It maintains its humor in what the author calls "farcical reality" all the way through the fast two act show that is still able to make its serious points.” - Broadway World

 

"How to Steal a Picasso is a comedy that correctly pinpoints this era in which capitalism determines the value of art. It depicts Otto and his family crying out for true art in a world full of consumption. Their choices raise enlightened questions about the original value of art.” – New Culture, Seoul Korea

 

MAD GRAVITY

 

"Downs is playing clever, agile games with reality, perception and identity here. This play is a highly elastic exercise in irony and self-awareness of from that put me in mind of The Stunt Man, and perhaps I'm a sucker for this stuff, but Mad Gravity is inspired satire and one of the best times you're likely to have in a theatre this month." - Arts Louisville

 

"Funny, fast and thought-provoking" - Insider Louisville

 

"For a wildly different evening of fun theater." - Bloomington Herald Times

 

"Exquisitely smart, with brilliant comic riffs on Dadaism, religion, domestic relations and personal morality (after all, if the world is actually going to end in an hour, figuring out whether looting, praying or having sex is the best way to validate the significance of life becomes a question of some urgency). - Louisville Weekly

 

“A few minutes into “Mad Gravity,” my mouth was hanging open and a goofy grin was splattered across my face. For the first 30 or 40 minutes of its run time, The Bard’s Town’s latest production is nearly perfect. It’s funny, fast and thought-provoking. It’s meta as all get out, and it is exactly my kind of theater.” – Insider Louisville

 

“This text by William Missouri speaks of the nature of people. How we condition the environment and especially the circumstances. Man is an animal by nature, although that animal and wild side we have very well kept inside and only comes when we cannot suppress it. When we can more the survival instinct than the pride. And it is at that moment that we realize that we are not as different as we think.”  Lautrec Bombin Critical (Spain)

 

“a crackerjack comedy… Typical of the playwright’s style, the narrative stirs up the audience, but in a subtle manner. It makes people realize that, sometimes, it’s not enough to sit in the dark and watch life unfold.” -  ETimes - India

 

THE EXIT INTERVIEW

 

“A rip-roaring send-up of Americanized Brechtian angst that had the audience howling.” - Stage Magazine


 

“The laughs keep coming — even as audience members might think with a twinge, "Ouch, that might be me." Some will no doubt be offended by one non-politically correct moment or another. But with luck, all will be forced to think.” - Orlando Sentinel

 

"The Exit Interview" may be one of the most up-front, honest plays you ever sit down to watch.” – The Salt Lake Tribune

 

“This fearless, delirious comedy undermines the typical theatre experience in search of an answer to the age-old question: do things really happen for a reason?” - Philadelphia Magazine

 

“William Missouri Downs’ bonkers theatrical carnival is to conventional plays what Burning Man is to a weenie roast.”  - San Diego Union Tribune

 

SEAGULLS IN A CHERRY TREE

“Playwright William Missouri Downs knows his Chekhov, and he has combined at least three of the master’s best-known works into this seriocomical sendup, which spoofs two Hollywood screenwriters hired to adapt The Cherry Orchard for Walt Disney Pictures.” - Orlando Sentinel

 

 “All you have to do is like to laugh.” - Orlando Sentinel

 

WOMEN PLAYING HAMLET

 

"This wickedly clever new play from William Missouri Downs, dubbed 'a comedy about a tragedy,' uses an all-woman cast to explore questions of courage and conscience in a modern setting, managing to both spoof Shakespeare and pay homage to him in a two-hour show that moves like lightning." - The Patriot News Harrisburg

 

"With the colorful script and vivid characters Women Playing Hamlet is a slam dunk..." - Kansas City Examiner

 

"What's amazing lies in the script where Downs dissects Hamlet's intricate character and puts all aspects of Hamlet's persona in Jessica's challenge to scale the ladder to play the part." - Kansas City Examiner

 

"A rollicking satire jabbing shallow pop culture, overly reverential attitudes toward literature and the intensive navel-gazing shared by actors." - Florida Theatre On Stage

 

"Silly, profound and ultimately moving." - Florida Theatre On Stage

 

"Downs's script has... theater history and some of the eternal questions about playing Hamlet woven into its fabric, along with funny and sobering truths about the actor's life." – Miami Herald

 

MR. PERFECT

 

“…Full of funny surprises." - Salt Lake Tribune.

 

“Hysterical! If you're going to see a play as a sort of escape you will get more than you bargained for here.” - New York Theatre.com

 

"...Downs flexes his considerable wit in asking if our ability to live in the present has been quashed by our need for familiar outcomes. If that sounds like a lot to get your mind around, fear not, for Downs brings this down to earth in the person of Zooey, an audio-book junkie, who wants her life to be the incarnation of her favorite taped stories." – Denver Post

 

"In classic Durang-style, Downs weaves these seemingly obscure and unrelated encounters with hilarious and thought-provoking questions. The questions, however, can be whittled down to one basic and universal question – How can we fix our lives?" -  Denver Theatre Examiner

 

"Probably the wittiest new play in the last few seasons, "Mr. Perfect" is also very wise. In this case Mr. Downs' laser sharp pen skewers our need to have lives reflective of the romantic visions of authors of the past who floridly illustrate the way relationships should begin love at first page and end happily ever after." – Colorado Critic Corner