Winner of a Rolling Premiere from the National New Play Network . PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL FRENCH Untenured professor Dr. Dick Fig has found that a PhD on Bertolt Brecht isn’t worth much – He’s being pink-slipped. The last thing he needs to do before he hits the slow-moving unemployment line is attend the University’s required exit interview. Eunice, the interviewer, is not a good match for Dick, she finds comfort in self-help books like book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, while Dick hates small talk and is a vocal freethinker. When a despondent student begins shooting up Ronald Reagan Hall (next door to the action), Dick and Eunice are forced to take cover as they confront the great existential questions of life: What is its meaning? What is the relationship between religion and science? And why does God hate amputees? (Dick had his foot amputated in a tragic moose accident – it was reattached). The Exit interview is not realism - A chorus of actors play nearly two dozen roles that interrupt the main action to tell the story of Dick’s failed relationships, his fallout with small minded people, and his relationship with the moose. When things get too intense, the chorus stops the action of the play to stage commercial interruptions and ten-minute plays with other story lines in order to remind the audience that they are in a theatre and need to keep thinking.

See it all at: www.angrypsychoprincesses.com Angry Psycho Princesses is a new musical comedy about William and Kate Fankhousers of St. Paul Minnesota. To save their collapsing marriage they take their daughter Cindy on vacation to Pretty Princess Park, a rip-off theme park across from Disneyland. Their daughter marvels at the animatronic “Hall of Princesses.” Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, all the princesses are there in robot form (at least the ones in public domain). But William and Kate aren’t enjoying themselves. She’s a businesswoman with a bladder infection; he’s an unemployed car salesman. While arguing they miss the recorded announcement, the park is closing; they find themselves locked in overnight. After hours, the android princesses magically come to life. William and Kate are terrified, Cindy thrilled. Off the clock the bitter, jaded human princesses try to drink booze and do Peyote. When they see little Cindy they warn her that she must get the hell out for they were also once-upon-a-time trapped in Pretty Princess Park afterhours and were made captive robots by the Evil Queen. That’s right, Pretty Princess Park is in fact a front for a villainous cult of war rats ruled over by the malicious Queen Badassery. Badassery was also a sweet little girl once, but then her mother took her to see Disney’s Bambi. The sight of Bambi’s mother dying was just too much for her little brain; she came down with Bambi Syndrome, which causes severe adult onset wickedness. Badassery puts a spell on little Cindy, when the sun comes up she too will become a robot princess. William and Kate Fankhousers must save their daughter, but they are immediately sidetracked when Kate falls in lust for the enchanting Charming Prince; he’s everything she’s ever wanted in a man and he doesn’t sell cars. Then William tries to spawn with the Little Mermaid, a sexy Fukushima victim, half-woman, half-Mackerel. When they come to their senses, Kate, William and the angry princesses lead a rebellion against the evil Queen in an attempt to stop her before she makes more little girls believe in princesses.

PUBLISHED BY PLAYSCRIPTS MR. PERFECT is not what you expect in a love story. It is a romantic comedy about a quirky flight attendant who is a romance novel junkie. When she meets Mr. Perfect she attempts to make love with him in the bathroom of an Airbus 32,000 feet over Dayton, Ohio. When it doesn’t work out she sets out on a personal search to find the purpose of life by connecting the random chance events that make up existence. Her search leads her to find solace in the arms of a PhD student whose thesis is about human beings' feeble attempt to find meaning where no meaning exists. Mr. Perfect finds comfort in the arms of a nationally known self-help guru and author of such famous books as Ten Days to Self-Esteem and On a Wing and a Prayer: A Twelve-Step Crash Course on Conquering Your Fear of Flying. But when the self-help guru goes down on an airliner and the PhD is charged with plagiarism, the lovers by chance find each other again and set out to create their own through-line, narrative and meaning. Now a full-length play, the original one-act version was produced at the New York City Fringe Festival a few years ago. The play was cancelled after one performance when Hurricane Irene hit, but the short version did get one review from New York Theatre.com, “Hysterical! If you're going to see a play as a sort of escape you will get more than you bargained for here.” "...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 "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 "Hysterical! If you're going to see a play as a sort of escape you will get more than you bargained for here." - nytheatre.com

This darkly comic drama was inspired by the cancellation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's commencement speech at Brandeis in 2014, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and my own personal travels through the Middle East. When an April Fool’s prank goes wrong, the Muslim students at a small liberal arts college file a complaint. Two professors deal with the problem by booking a poet from Somalia to give the college’s commencement speech. Fresh off the plane, the poet doesn’t understand the college’s political correctness, nor does the poet fit the professors’ preconceived stereotype of a Muslim woman. With the possible cancellation of the speech looming, all three are forced to confront the issues of diversity and the suppression of free speech on college campuses. Forgiving John Lennon was originally produced as a one act but is now a two act, full-length ready to be developed.

PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL FRENCH Phil was a philosophy major in college. As if that’s not enough of a turn off to women, he is also rather average. All of this wouldn’t be a problem if Phil weren’t madly in love with Sophia, the boss’s beautiful secretary. He tries to introduce himself but she looks right through him. Phil’s best friend, Norman tells the humiliated Phil that the rumor around the office is that Sophia has a glass eye. This news thrills Phil because this tiny imperfection makes Sophia attainable. But more, Phil was standing to her left - perhaps she never saw him! Phil begs Norman to make a formal introduction. However, this second attempt ends in utter failure when Sophia looks right through Phil - again. His self-esteem in shambles, it soon occurs to Phil that Sophia in fact cannot see him. Perhaps he is caught in some kind of hyperspace or dualistic reality or perhaps Descartes was wrong. Phil decides there is only one logical thing to do – he moves in with the woman of his dreams – despite the fact that she’s unaware of his existence