Beth Henley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and President’s Professor in Theatre Arts at Loyola Marymount University, has been honored by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education with its Career Achievement Award in Professional Theatre.
Henley, a faculty member in the College of Communication and Fine Arts for five years, received the award in Los Angeles last week at the association’s annual convention. In her acceptance speech, Henley reflected on theatre’s attraction, citing an essay she wrote for the anthology, “The Play That Changed My Life: America’s Foremost Playwrights on the Plays That Influenced Them,” edited by Ben Hodges. Henley described an epiphany from her childhood upon seeing her mother, an actress, dressed as the Green Bean Man. “I remember when she’d pick us up for carpool, and she was all green, and I just thought, ‘I want to be part of a work where I could be green,’ ” she wrote. She told the conferees how she also learned from her mother about both the ephemeral and enduring value of theatre; “that the theatre is real, very real, and then it ends. A whole world is created that will never stay…. Plays were important to my mother in a way real life wasn’t.” Barbara Busse, dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts, said that Henley’s teaching and mentoring “embodies what [LMU] is aiming to accomplish” with the President’s Professor appointments. Henley teaches up to two courses a semester and works with writing students across the university. This past semester, some of Henley’s students traveled with her to New York City to work with her and director Jonathan Demme on the Broadway production of Henley’s play, “Family Week.” LMU students also worked with Henley this spring on the reprise of her 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner, “Crimes of the Heart,” at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif. “She works directly with small groups of students and encourages and supports their development as writers,” said Busse. “They get an extraordinarily rare opportunity that few students at any university experience. It is unique to have this kind of intense relationship with a distinguished artist.” “Crimes of the Heart” was first produced professionally by the Actors Theatre of Louisville and then moved to the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. Along with the Pulitzer Prize for drama, it was named the Best American Play of 1981 by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. The play also earned Henley a Tony Award nomination, and her screenplay for the film version was nominated for an Oscar as Best Adapted Screenplay. Henley adapted her play, “The Miss Firecracker Contest,” into a 1989 film starring Holly Hunter entitled “Miss Firecracker.” Her other plays are: “Am I Blue” (1972), “The Wake of Jamey Foster” (1981), “The Debutante Ball” (1985), “The Lucky Spot” (1986), “Abundance” (1990), “Control Freaks” (1992), “Signature” (1995), “L-Play” (1996), “Impossible Marriage” (1998) and “Ridiculous Fraud” (2006). Her film work also includes “True Stories” (1986) and “Nobody’s Fool” (1986). The Career Achievement Award is the highest honor bestowed by the association, which annually gives two career achievement awards, one to someone whose career has primarily been in professional theatre and the other for a career primarily focused on theatre in higher education. |