Professor William Missouri Downs, also known as Bill Downs, originally from Bay City, Michigan, is an American playwright, director and author. Professor Downs writes many types of plays including Kabuki, political theater and dark comedies. His plays have been produced all over the world and have won numerous awards, including the National Playwrights Award, The Norfolk & Southern Festival of New Works and the Larry Corse prize for playwriting. Bill is a member of the WGA and a full voting member of the DGA.
Bill is the co-author of books THE ART OF THEATRE (Wadsworth), NAKED PLAYWRITING and SCREENPLAY: WRITING THE PICTURE (Silman/James).
Bill has had several plays published by Samuel French and Playscripts, Inc.
Bill was the director of GOOD MORNING ATHENS the Rock Musical that was performed at the Kennedy Center during the American College Theatre Festival in 2004
Bill earned his Bachelor's degree at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, his MFA in acting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his second MFA in screenwriting at UCLA. He studied playwriting under Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt at the Circle Rep in New York and was mentored by Lew Hunter at UCLA.
Bill was the co-Artistic Director of the Circle Rep Theatre (West)
In 1987 Bill Downs began working for Picturemaker Productions as a Script Secretary and Production Assistant on the NBC television series Moonlighting. He worked this job for one season (1987—1988). From 1988-1989 Bill Downs worked for Interscope Pictures, once again as a Script Secretary and Production Assistant.
In 1989 Bill began work for Columbia Television. Here he was a staff writer for 23 episodes on the NBC sitcom, My Two Dads. In 1990 he finished writing for My Two Dads and in 1991 Bill began work for Paramount Studios as a Freelance Writer for the NBC television show Amen. A particular boast from Mr. Downs is that he was a freelance writer for the show for its 100th episode, starring Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Some of his notable works on television include:
"The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (1991) - Something for Nothing (1991) TV episode
"Amen" (1991) - The Deacon's Slam Dunk (1991)
"My Two Dads"(1989—1990)- You Only Surprise the Ones You Love (1990) TV episode - It's My Art, and I'll Die If I Want To (1990) TV episode - I'm Dreaming of a Holiday Episode (1989) TV episode - Say Goodnight, Gracie (1989) TV episode
Finally, Bill Downs was involved as Director, Producer, and Writer in 1992 for Social Grace. Social Grace was a theater-video project done by the University of Colorado as an inter-departmental production to give acting and directing experience to students.
In 1991 Bill Downs left the Hollywood life-style behind in exchange for a teaching career. He began his teaching career in fall of 1991 as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado Denver. He would work here for a full year Directing and teaching Introduction to Theater.
The following academic year (1992—1993), Mr. Downs left Colorado to go teach at the University of North Carolina. Here he would stay another year, teaching beginning and advanced classes in Directing and Playwriting, Dramatic Literature, Introduction to Theater, and do work as a Student Play Festival Producer.
Following on from the 1992-1993 academic year, Bill Downs returned to the mountain region of America, but this time to the University of Wyoming. From 1993-1997 he worked at the University of Wyoming as an Assistant Professor as the Head of the Playwriting program. In 1997 Bill Downs was promoted to an Associate Professor at the University of Wyoming and finally was promoted to Full Professor in 2004.
Bill Downs is still a professor for the University of Wyoming to this date, and teaches a range of classes, from Honors classes to Introduction to Theater, all focused around the performing arts. His Introduction to Theater class seems to be a popular one among students with these classes often full or nearly full, with 200 students being a normal class size. As a teacher Professor Downs is very confrontational and will often take the opposite point of view to a student just to force the student to think about why they feel their opinion is right. Professor Downs' confrontational nature can be seen by some as extreme, although on networking sites such as Myspace where people can "Grade your Professor", there are relatively few negative comments about Professor Downs, with a majority of comments being favorable.Students find him also very liberal in his thoughts; speaking clearly what he thinks about something.
Bill Downs has won "Top Ten Professor" six times and several other teaching and research awards.
