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Home
Authors
Beth Henley
American
Playwright
About the author
Then I went off to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. They had a really wonderful theatre department.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#University
#Theatre
Plays are so much more special if they've never ever had a production, but I think you can really work on a play and make it better with each production.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Work
#Play
#Production
Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#People
#Funny
Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#People
#Actors
That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you'll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Play
The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Success
#Food
#Being
#School
#America
#College
The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Poor
#Woman
#Writing
#Night
#School
#Christmas
#Class
Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was kind of bereft and she put me in an acting class.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Acting
#School
#Class
What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Acting
#Day
#Class
You can't just go in there and open your mouth until the cast and director feel comfortable with you.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Open
It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Character
#Trouble
The most glorious thing about working in the collaborative art is when you have somebody like Susan Kingsley or Kathy Bates who are better than your play.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Art
#Play
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Mother
#Community
#Theatre
My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#First
Part of that is that New York has proved to be too much fun for me to live and work; I love New York so much.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Love
#Work
#Fun
I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Being
I love writing for the screen.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Love
#Writing
I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Money
#Theatre
I was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Being
#School
In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Lie
#Class
It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
It's called Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. It was interesting for me to see it done after so many years; because I wrote it and I didn't realize what a rage I was in.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Years
#Winter
#Sisters
I'm very into the first production of the show.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#First
#Production
But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
My fault now is making my plays too short.
Beth Henley,
American
Playwright
#Now
#Fault