by Richard Greenberg

Directed by Patrick Martin

Apr. 9,10,11,15,16,17,18,22,23,24,25

Richard Greenberg’s The Violet Hour has variously been characterized as an eccentric ‘peering’ into the future, as a dark comedy with a twist of sci-fi, and as a “... luminous, mysterious, emotionally churning tragicomedy” – perhaps reflecting its many intertwined motifs and layers. The story takes place in the New York City of 1919 and concerns one John Pace Seavering, Princeton grad and returning veteran of the Great War, who has set himself up in the business of publishing ... but, just getting his feet on the ground, can’t afford to handle more than one book at a time. And therein lays the horns of a dilemma: whether to publish his secret lover’s memoirs, or his best friend’s ‘Great American Novel’. The immediate answer is his wistful lament, “If I could only see the future...”, scarcely aware how close his wish is to being granted!

The play received its Broadway debut in November, 2003, at the Manhattan Theatre Club in the freshly restored Biltmore Theatre. It saw its Philadelphia area premier in a well-received production by Theatre Horizon in 2006. The author, born in 1958, has penned over twenty-five plays, one of which, Take Me Out, earned the Tony award for Best Play in 2003. Greenberg commented on The Violet Hour in a recent interview, “... I’m interested in ambition and plans that go awry ....[and in] a highly ambitious guy... discovering the consequences of all the actions he’s ever going to take.”