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Bureau of Mines Building, Room 137
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-2929
Email: cbaldwin@uwyo.edu


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UW Theatre and Dance Season Opens with Below the Navel Above the Knees

The University of Wyoming Department of Theatre and Dance opens the fall season with “Below the Navel Above the Knees,” an adult comedy about a liberal, agnostic California professor who takes a teaching position at a conservative college in rural Kansas.

“Below the Navel Above the Knees” will run Wednesday, Oct. 3, through Saturday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m. and Thursday, Oct. 11, through Saturday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts Studio Theatre. UW playwright-in-residence William Missouri Downs created and directed the production.

Tickets cost $14 for the public, $11 for senior citizens and $7 for students. Tickets are available at the Performing Arts box office and the Wyoming Union information desk, by calling (307) 766-6666 or going online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts. Wednesday, Oct. 3, all tickets cost $5 for opening night.

In “Below the Navel Above the Knees,” Downs examines the battle between faith and reason. Downs is known for writing provocative comedies.

“I believe that the mission of the theater is to question society’s attitudes,” Downs says.

According to Downs, his play is not for children, and it is not for adults who do not want to laugh about the absurdity of life.

“Too many on the right and left in this country have become intolerant, inflexible and easy to offend,” Downs says. “A mind that is free to laugh at the irony of life is momentarily open to the consideration of new possibilities.”

Downs has had 150 productions of his plays performed in a dozen countries. He has published 11 plays, four books and written for several Hollywood sitcoms. Last year, in Hollywood, he worked with Jim Parsons of the “Big Bang Theory” on a TV pilot version of “Below the Navel Above the Knees.” He also co-wrote “Art of Theatre,” a textbook used by an estimated 70,000 college students since its publication.

Downs has received 25 teaching/research awards at UW and teaches theater and atheism classes.

For more information, call Kathy Kirkaldie, UW Fine Arts coordinator, at (307) 766-2160 or email kirisk@uwyo.edu.

 

 

Contact Us

Institutional Communications
Bureau of Mines Building, Room 137
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-2929
Email: cbaldwin@uwyo.edu


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