The Violet Hour
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39th Season • 375th Production JULIANNE ARGYROS STAGE / NOVEMBER 5 THROUGH 24, 2002 David Emmes Martin Benson PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR presents the World Premiere of THE VIOLET HOUR by RICHARD GREENBERG Scenic Design Costume Design Lighting Design Original Music & Sound Design CHRISTOPHER BARRECA CANDICE CAIN DONALD HOLDER MIKE YIONOULIS Dramaturg Assistant Director Production Manager Stage Manager JERRY PATCH SHANNON FLYNN TOM ABERGER *JAMIE A. TUCKER Directed by EVAN YIONOULIS Honorary Producers ELAINE AND MARTIN WEINBERG THE CITIGROUP PRIVATE BANK The Violet Hour was commissioned and developed by South Coast Repertory The Violet Hour • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) John Pace Seavering .......................................................... *Hamish Linklater Gidger ..................................................................................... *Mario Cantone Denis McCleary ............................................................ *Curtis Mark Williams Jessie Brewster ........................................................................ *Michelle Hurd Rosamund Plinth .................................................................... *Kate Arrington SETTING John Pace Seavering’s office and its anteroom in a Manhattan tower. April 1919. Early afternoon to early evening. LENGTH Approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Casting Director ................................................................................. Joanne DeNaut Production Assistant ............................................................................ Deanna Keefe Costume Design Assistant .......................................................................... Julie Keen Assistants to the Set Designer .................................... Efren Del Gadio, Matt Downs Assistant to the Lighting Designer ................................................ Christina Munich Stage Management Intern .......................................................................... Diane Lin Additional Costume Staff ................................................ Tracy Gray, Stacey Nezda, Peggy Oquist, Natalie Retzlaff Movement Consultant .......................................................................... Sylvia Turner ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Special thanks to Boise Paper Solutions for its donation. There will be smoking on stage during this performance. Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Official Airline Media Partner P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • The Violet Hour Tripping the Light Fantastic (On the sidewalks of New York) If we lived long enough to Richard Greenberg credits this see the results of our actions 1920s photo of the I. Miller shoe it may be that those who call shop on Fifth Avenue (which ap- themselves good would be pears in ‘New York, An Illustrated History’ by Ric Burns and James sickened with a dull remorse, Saunders) as one of the images and those whom the world which inspired ‘The Violet Hour.’ calls evil stirred by a noble The shop served late afternoon tea joy. Each little thing that we during style seminars. do passes into the great ma- chine of life which may grind our virtues to powder and New York had all the iridescence of make them worthless, or the beginning of the world …. This transform our sins into ele- was the greatest nation and there ments of a new civilization, was gala in the air. more marvelous and more –F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1919 splendid that any that has gone before. Lonely and inexplicable as the –Oscar Wilde sphinx rose the Empire State Build- ing and, just as it had been a tradi- . .It is fitting the workman tion of mine to climb to the Plaza Who tried to chisel a dove for (Hotel) roof to take leave of the my headstone beautiful city, extending as far as Made it look more like a the eyes could reach, so now I went ch i c k e n . to the roof of the last and most For what is it all but being magnificent of towers. Then I un- ha t c h e d , derstood—everything was ex- And running about the yard, plained. I had discovered the crowning error of the city, To the day of the block? it’s Pandora’s box. Save that a man has an angel’s brain, Full of vaunting pride the New Yorker had And sees the ax from the first. climbed here and seen with dismay what he had never –Edgar Lee Masters, “Franklin Jones,” suspected, that the city was not the endless succession of Spoon River Anthology canyons that he had supposed, but that it had limits— from the tallest structure he saw with the awful realization There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not that New York was a city after all and not a universe, the send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. whole shining edifice that he had reared in his imagina- –Oscar Wilde tion came crashing to the ground. –F. Scott Fitzgerald, “My Lost City,” 1932 With a scowl and a frown We’ll keep our peckers down He shows his splendor And prepare for depression and doom and dread, in a little room, We’re going to un -pack our troubles from our old kit bag he says to us, And wait until we drop down dead. be glad –Noel Coward, and laugh, “There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner” be gay. –Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), “Projector” Only when Noel Coward is frivolous does he become in any sense profound. Frivolity. .was an act of freedom, Things have changed since those times, some are up in “G” of disenchantment. His frivolity celebrates a metaphysical Others they are wand’rers but they all feel just like me stalemate, calling it quits with meanings and certainties… They’d part with all they’ve got, could they once more walk Frivolity acknowledges the futility of life while adding With their best girl and have a twirl on the sidewalks of flavour to it. New York –John Lahr, Coward the Playwright — “Sidewalks of New York” James W. Blake and Charles E. Lawler The Violet Hour •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 KAT E ARR I N G T O N MAR I O CAN T O N E MIC H E L L E HUR D Rosamund Plinth Gidger Jessie Brewster Ar tist Biographies *KATE ARRINGTON (R o s a m u n d *MARIO CANTONE (G i d g e r) is and very excited to be doing a P l i n t h) is making her SCR debut. making his SCR debut. He ap- Richard Greenberg play. She ap- New York theatre credits include peared on Broadway in Love! Val- peared on Broadway in G e t t i n g Everett Beekin at Lincoln Center, our! Compassion! and The Tempest Away with Murder. Off-Broadway Bluebeard, and Other Less Grisley and Off-Broadway in The Taming appearances include AML at MCC, Tales of Love at SoHo Repertory, of the Shrew, June Moon and T h e 900 Oneonta at Circle Repertory, Three Sisters at Charas Theatre, Crumple Zone. Regionally he ap- Hot Keys at Naked Angels, T h e Sexy Saint James at HERE, T h e peared in Kander and Ebb’s O v e r Constant Couple, C o n q u e r i n g House of V at Eyases Ensemble and Over. Film credits include T h u r s d a y a n d The Shepard Prince and BOOM: The Lost Generation a t Quiz Show, Mouse Hunt a n d at the Westbeth Theatre and with the 13th Street Theatre. Regional Crooked Lines. He portrays Antho- her sister Adrienne in Looking for theatre credits include A View ny on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” the Pony at Manhattan Theatre from the Bridge at Oldcastle The- and has appeared on “Ed,” “Late Source. Television credits include atre Company; Hard Times, The Night with David Letterman,” “The series regular roles on “Law & Winter’s Tale, Arms and the Man View,” “Rosie O’Donnell,” “Steam- Order SVU,” “Leap Years,” “Mal- and As You Like It at the Maine pipe Ally” and has hosted “A&E Bi- colm & Eddie,” “Action” and “Jus- Shakespearean Theatre; and T h e ography.” He has performed his tice League of America;” recurring Threepenny Opera, August Snow stand-up at Carnegie Hall, opening roles on “The Practice,” “New York and Talking With at the for Shirley Bassey, and in Atlantic Undercover” and “Another World;” Williamstown Theatre Festival. City resorts. Mr. Cantone has nu- guest lead appearances on “The Film and television credits include merous credits for Comedy Central Fugitive,” “Players,” “Law & Order” The King of Irontown, “All My including his own half-hour special and “New York News.” Film cred- Children” and “Guiding Light.” entitled “Comedy Central Presents its include Personals, Random Ms. Arrington is a graduate of Mario Cantone.” Hearts, Wolf, Double Parked, Rude Northwestern University and re- Awakening and King of New York. sides in New York. *MICHELLE HURD (Jessie Brewster) She dedicates her performance to is happy to make her debut at SCR her father. Peace, love and health. P4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • The Violet Hour of Strindberg’s Dance of Death could be seen on Broadway, star- ring Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren and David Straithairn. His most recent play, Take Me Out, trav- elled from London to New York this past summer in the first co- production of the Donmar Ware- house and The Public Theater, and will transfer to Broadway in early 2003. He is a winner of the Oppenheimer Award and the first winner of the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a playwright in mid-ca- reer. HAM I S H LIN K L A T E R CUR T I S MAR K WIL L I A M S John Pace Seavering Denis McCleary EVAN YIONOULIS (D i r e c t o r) d i- rected the premieres of E v e r e t t Beekin and Three Days of Rain *HAMISH LINKLATER (John Pace R u n t at the American Place The- (D r a m a - L o g u e Award) at South S e a v e r i n g) is making his SCR atre, Romeo and Juliet at the New Coast Repertory.