The Miss Firecracker Contest (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1985). Henley's most successful play next to Crimes of the Heart. Also set in a small Mississippi town (Brookhaven), it follows the trials and tribulations of Carnelle Scott, a twenty-four-year-old woman with a bad reputation in town who seeks to redeem herself by winning the title of Miss Firecracker for the Fourth of July celebration. With a cast full of very odd characters who, like Carnelle, seek some kind of redemption from their lives, the play probes the grotesque even more so than Crimes of the Heart. While some critics have suggested that Henley merely reworks the same ideas from play to play, others have found The Miss Firecracker Contest a fresh, original expression of Henley's unique view of life in small southern towns. The play was adapted into a film in...