Synopsis: Arlen Wienberg, a Jewish anthropologist, is called to be an expert witness in a murder trial. The accused: a white police officer. His alleged crime: murdering a black man twenty years ago and burying the bones in the dirt floor beneath his brownstone. When Arlen arrives, he is shocked to discover that the defense lawyer is black.

Ira Altridge is that black lawyer and he isn't having a good day. His first expert witness has suddenly resigned from the case giving him only one thin lunch hour to get his new anthropologist up to speed. Ira's got the game down: when he's called up to the Black judge he converses with a perfect brother-man-black accent. In front of the white jury he speaks in a lily-white tongue.

Soon the two men discover that they know each other. They both grew up in the same suburb of Chicago. It was not an easy childhood. Ira was a gang member who often preyed on Jewish Boys, and Arlen was the perfect target.

Soon their childhoods, cultures and convictions come into conflict. Arlen's namby pamby liberalism drives Ira nuts, while Arlen begins to question if Ira's true purpose is to defend his white client. This play deals with racism and political correctness.

"Innocent Thoughts is a highly observant comedy/drama involving a black lawyer and a Jewish expert witness. Political correctness fall by the wayside as the black and the Jew . . . move from political convention to mind games, open insults and finally bare-knuckle brawling."
- "Critic's Choice," The Denver Post

"Innocent Thoughts rivals David Mamet's Oleanna."
- Anne Arbor News

"Innocent Thoughts stays with you and that's the mark of a good play."
- "Critic's Choice," Rocky Mountain News

1ST PLACE - National Playwrights Award, Unicorn Theatre, Kansas City, MO

1ST PLACE - Festival of New Works, 24th Street Experimental Theatre, San Antonio, TX

Performance rights must be secured before production.

About the Playwright: William Missouri Downs 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 for several years at the Circle Rep. in New York. He has authored a dozen plays, including Kabuki Medea which won the Bay Area Critics Award for best production in San Francisco, Jewish Sports Heroes and Texas Intellectuals which took first place at the Mill Mountain Theatre's Festival Of New Plays and Dead White Males which was a semi-finalist in Eugene O'Neill. Bill's plays have been produced from New York to Singapore, from the Kennedy Center to the Berkeley Rep. In addition to writing plays, Bill is the author of the books Playwriting: From Formula To Form and Screenplay: Writing The Picture, both published by Harcourt Brace. In Hollywood, he wrote for such NBC sitcoms as "My Two Dads," "Amen" and "Fresh Prince Of Bel Air," won the Jack Nicholson Award for screenwriting and sold the movie Executive Privilege to Tri-star. He is a member of the Denver Center's Playwright's Unit.

Innocent Thoughts was was first produced by the 24th Street Experimental Theatre in San Antonio, Texas in 1995, and received its professional premiere at the Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri in 1996.