We had so much trouble along the way convincing people it would work.

Alexander Woollcott did say she (Parker) would be Mrs. Benchley if there wasn't one already. We played that up for the show. You do things you feel could possibly have been true but having not been there, we don't really know.

Maybe it has something to do with longing for ... a more articulate society than there is these days. That's part of what people find fascinating, that these people lived by their wits and their words.

I tried to be very positive and work for the best of the city. That's the only way to do it in a small town.

By and large, we developed a process that will work in the future.

If they got trouble, they would be sent here and I would put them to work. But they weren't here very often.