I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.
BETH HENLEYIt’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.
More Beth Henley Quotes
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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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I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.
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I love writing for the screen.
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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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I’m very into the first production of the show.
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I love to work, although sometimes I can spend whole days doing nothing more than picking the lint off the carpet and talking to my mother on the phone.
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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.
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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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I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
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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.
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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.
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I was just restless with being in school; so I went out to Los Angeles.
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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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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.
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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.
BETH HENLEY