SOURCE: Harper's, Vol. 233, No. 1396, September 1966, pp. 64-70, 73-4.

In the excerpt below, Odets recalls the excitement and difficulties of his involvement with the Group Theatre and recounts the first performance of "Waiting for Lefty." This article was derived from an interview Odets gave in 1961, two years before his death.

I had always wanted as a kid to be both an actor and a writer. For a while I thought I would be a novelist, but when I became a professional actor, my mind naturally began to take the form of the play as a means of saying something. I wasn't sure I had anything to say, because some of the other things I wrote were quite dismal. But being an actor, I began to think in terms of three acts, divisions of acts, and scenes within the acts, and whatever technique I have has been unconsciously absorbed—almost...