interview by Jess McCuan . photo by Anthony Bellemare

Name: RoseLynn Katz

Age: 71

You often play the poet and critic Dorothy Parker in plays around town. Why do you like Dorothy so much? I love her elegant wit. I started reading her in my teens. She really speaks to the women of her times—though I don’t think she speaks for women of today.

Why not? She lived by the rule that you always had to have a man around.

And what’s your favorite Dorothy Parker quote? Oh, there are so many. Here’s one: “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

Any others? You know what Dorothy Parker said when she found out Calvin Coolidge was dead? She said, “How could they tell?”