Interesting Day at the Old Surratt Hacienda

[L Verge]

I guess my forty-one years at Surratt House are wearing me down, but I'm becoming very jaded and impatient with artistes of various medias who have stretched artistic license and history to the breaking point. It is especially frustrating when there have been so many good books written since the 1980s as well as decent sites online. It is better to work with documentaries than with those more avant garde theater groups, but the final product is not always what you hope it will be.

My first experience with a TV production crew was in 1979 with the old In Search Of program where Robert Stack promised to tell real history. In this case, it was the Booth "escaped" theory. Great group to work with and very amenable to getting things right (or at least not totally screwed up!). We had them here for over a week because the Dr. Mudd House refused to let them on the property, so scenes from the sofa to the bedroom were filmed here with the production people providing all the furniture and props.

Since then, we have worked with probably 8-10 other TV, movie, stage, and other assorted programs. All have been nice groups to deal with, but some of the outcomes have been not so nice. To me, it seems that directors and playwrights do not want to bend their script for historical accuracy. If they could only hear the vast majority of our visitors who come off tour here saying how great it is to hear "what really happened."

Some of my disgust was assuaged, however, when I got to shake hands with Robert Redford at the premiere of The Conspirator five years ago!