William Missouri Downs

I am a playwright and writer whose comedies and musicals have been produced more than 350 times worldwide. I have been fortunate to receive several honors along the way, including two rolling world premieres from the National New Play Network, and I was a finalist twice for the Eugene O’Neill. Fourteen of my plays are published by Concord Theatricals, Playscripts, Heuer, TRW, and Next Stage Press, and my monologues have appeared in nine collections. My work has been staged throughout the United States, from the Kennedy Center to the San Diego Rep, as well as internationally in countries including Spain, Canada, South Africa, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, India, the UAE, Australia, England, and South Korea. I have also worked in television as a writer for several NBC sitcoms and have sold or optioned a few screenplays and a television pilot.

In addition, I have written six books, including the textbook The Art of Theatre, now in its fifth edition, as well as Screenplay: Writing the Picture and Naked Playwriting. I have also published two novels, 'Five Minutes from Chaos', a Kafka comedy that makes fun of theatre departments, philosophy professors, and academia, and 'Immaculate Deception', a satire about Christian Nationalism. I hold two MFAs, one in screenwriting from UCLA and one in acting from the University of Illinois, and I remain grateful for the teachers, collaborators, and theaters that have made this work possible.