The Violet Hour
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The Violet Hour is a play by Richard Greenberg. It was commissioned by and originally produced by South Coast Repertory with Hamish Linklater as Seavering and Mario Cantone as Gidger. It received its Broadway debut on November 6, 2003 when the Manhattan Theatre Club produced it as the first play in the renovated Biltmore Theatre. MTC's production had a cast featuring Robert Sean Leonard as Seavering and Cantone reprising his role as Gidger, and ran for 54 performances, the planned length of its subscription run.
[edit] Synopsis
The play is about a young publisher named John Pace Seavering who has enough money to publish one book. He is torn between publishing the gargantuan novel of his former college roommate, and perhaps more than friend, Denis McCleary. His other option is of publishing the memoirs of his mistress, Jessie Brewster. Denis needs the book published so that he can look good in front of the father of the woman that he is in love with. Jessie, however, needs her memoirs published because of her life expectancy running out. Then a mysterious, paper spewing machine enters. The papers are from books that have information about the lives of the characters and their futures. Gidger, Seavering's assistant, learns that he becomes a person of no importance and that his dog becomes famous. Seavering learns from these papers that he becomes a well-to-do publisher and no matter whose book he publishes, he will either lose his mistress or his friend.
