Beth Henley
Beth Henley
Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henleyis an award-winning American playwright, screen writer, and actress. Her play, Crimes of the Heart won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the 1981 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play, and a nomination for a Tony Award. Her screenplay for Crimes of the Heart was nominated for an Oscar as Best Adapted Screenplay...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth8 May 1952
CountryUnited States of America
dream writing creating
And all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won't have to bother doing it themselves.
couple writing play
I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays
writing screens
I love writing for the screen.
smart character writing
But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.
christmas writing school
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.
detach enjoy love tried
I've always emotionally tried to detach myself from my screenwriting and just love doing it, enjoy doing it, and I try to do adaptations.
badly job nihilism taught time
I think I had a job in a children's theatre. I taught badly because I was into nihilism at the time and that's just not where you go with teaching.
producer unless
I didn't really know how to get it to a producer or how to get it to an agent. Nobody's going to look at it unless it's a success.
board perform trained
Yes, you have actors that are all over the board in how they've been trained and what they like and what they are used to or how they perform best.
control rehearsals utterly
When we were doing Control Freaks, it was all about being out of control in rehearsals and then doing a play that is so utterly controlled.
thinking people world
I find it fascinating to think about what the world is going to be like when people won't talk anymore.
new-york fun too-much
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.
play faults too-short
My fault now is making my plays too short.
art play art-is
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.