That’s what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?
BETH HENLEYThat 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.
More Beth Henley Quotes
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I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
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I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I’d rather write plays.
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I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.
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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.
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It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
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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.
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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.
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And all writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to bother doing it themselves.
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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.
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My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.
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I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
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I’m very into the first production of the show.
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In movement class, you had to lie on the floor and get your alignment in to pass the class.
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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.
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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