Beth Henley was born May 8, 1952, in Jackson, Mississippi, the daughter of an attorney and a community theatre actress. Her southern heritage has played a large role in the setting and themes of her writing, as well as the critical response she has received she is often categorized as a writer of the "Southern Gothic" tradition. As an undergraduate at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, Henley studied acting and this training has remained important to her since her transition to playwriting. Directors and fellow playwrights have observed that Henley "approaches a play from the point of view of theater, not literature" and that "as an actress, she then knows how to make her works stageworthy" (Haller).

She wrote her first play, a one-act titled Am I Blue, to fulfill a play writing class assignment. When it was produced at SMU her senior year, she modestly...