It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

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.

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.

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.

It'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.

Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.

My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.