Crimes of the Heart. First performed in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1979, the Mississippi-born dramatist's Chekhovian play about a day in the life of three unsettled Mississippi sisters premieres on Broadway. It would be adapted for the screen five years later. Henley's style, sometimes called "Southern gothic," combines dark humor with a decidedly regional idiom. The combination proves popular with audiences and critics, prompting Frank Rich to write in the New York Times: "Be grateful that we have a new writer from hurricane country who gives her characters room to spin and spin and spin."
The Miss Firecracker Contest. Henley explores Southern manners and the mother-daughter relationship in this play. A young woman named Carnelle is determined to win the Miss Firecracker Contest as a way of getting back at provincial townspeople and her rival. But fame turns out not to be so desirable when it means engaging in rather fierce competition. Henley's comic characters are juxtaposed against the rituals of Southern life.
Career Highlights: True Stories, Miss Firecracker, Crimes of the Heart
First Major Screen Credit: Crimes of the Heart (1986)
Biography
In 1978, while still a sophomore in college, playwright/screenwriter Beth Henley, born Elizabeth Becker Henley was awarded a Pulitzer prize for her very first play Crimes of the Heart. In 1986, her adaptation of the play earned her an Oscar nomination and she has gone on to write several screenplays for Hollywood features including David Byrne's True Stories (1986) and Miss Firecracker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Henley continues to write plays and screenplays from her adopted home in California. She is an alumna of Southern Methodist University. Her latest play, Ridiculous Fraud, was produced at the McCarter Theatre in 2006.
