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
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
My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana. – Beth Henley
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
Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was kind of bereft and she put me in an acting class. – Beth Henley
In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class. – Beth Henley
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
Then I went off to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. They had a really wonderful theatre department. – Beth Henley
I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money. – Beth Henley
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
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
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
You can’t just go in there and open your mouth until the cast and director feel comfortable with you. – Beth Henley
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
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
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
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
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
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays. – Beth Henley
