Seagulls In A Cherry Tree

William Missouri Downs (Author). Bill holds an M.F.A. in acting from the University of Illinois and an M.F.A. in screenwriting from U.C.L.A. He studied playwriting under Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt at the Circle Rep in New York. He has authored twenty full length plays, including Jewish Sports Heroes and Texas Intellectuals which took first place at the Mill Mountain Theatre's Festival Of New Plays, Innocent Thoughts winner of the National Playwrights Award, and Kabuki Medea which won both the Bay Area Critics Award for best production in San Francisco and the Jefferson Award for best production in Chicago. Bill has had nearly 100 productions from New York to Singapore and from Israel to South Africa, including theatres like the Kennedy Center and the Berkeley Rep. He's also written four books including Naked Playwriting and Screenplay: Writing The Picture both published by Silman/James and The Art Of Theatre published by Wadsworth. In Hollywood, he wrote for such NBC sitcoms as “My Two Dads” and “Fresh Prince of  Bel Air”. After many years in Manhattan and Los Angeles, Bill now lives in Wyoming.

Jef Hall-Flavin (Director). Jef is currently the Festival Director for the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival (in Massachussetts), where he directed a world-premiere Tennessee Williams one-act play, The Parade.  He served as Associate Producer for the Great River Shakespeare Festival in 2006, and prior to that, served for two years as the Associate Director of The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., where directed As You Like It in a co-production with the Kennedy Center. He restaged Mark Lamos’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Shakespeare Free-For-All at the Carter-Barron Amphitheatre in Rock Creek Park, and in Colorado for the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival. He also directed ReDiscovery readings (Lorenzaccio, Nathan the Wise), and has served as assistant director to Michael Kahn on Macbeth and Cyrano, Mark Lamos on Midsummer, and Bill Alexander on Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. 

Jef developed and directed a touring production commissioned by the Guthrie Theater called The Stuff of Dreams.  He served on the staff of the Guthrie Theater for several years, and was also the artistic director of Outward Spiral Theatre Company in Minneapolis from 1998 - 2003, where he directed a critically acclaimed production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2002. Other Outward Spiral productions include Falsettos, In the Heart of America, Dog Opera, and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told.  He was assistant director on the world premiere of Thief River by Lee Blessing, as well as several Guthrie Theater productions.

His most recent freelance directing projects include The Clean House which he staged in New Zealand, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Park Square Theatre in his home town of St. Paul, Minnesota. He has worked on several readings and workshops at the Playwright’s Center, Stages Theatre Company (Minnesota), and Red Bull Theater (New York).  His next project takes him back to New Zealand to direct A Streetcar Named Desire.