Barrington Presents 'The Violet Hour'

What if you could read the future?  Barrington Stage Company, under the artistic leadership of Julianne Boyd, presents the Berkshire-area premiere of "The Violet Hour", an imaginative and thought-provoking play about love, time and fate, by award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out).  Directed by Barry Edelstein, "The Violet Hour" will be presented on the BSC Mainstage from July 17 through August 2, with the press opening Sunday, July 20 at 5pm.
 
"The Violet Hour" stars Alex Lysy (WTF's Romeo and Juliet) as John Pace Seavering, Brian Avers (BSC's Black Comedy) as Denny McCleary; Opal Alladin (B'way's On Golden Pond) as Jessie Brewster, Heidi Armbruster (BSC's Uncle Vanya) as Rosamund Plinth and Nat De Wolf (B'way's Take Me Out) as Gidger.
 
Fame, fortune, and friendship all ride on a decision John Pace Seavering must make as he starts a publishing house in New York after World War I: what will be his first book?  His difficult decision--whether to publish his lover's memoir or the novel written by his best friend.  Further complications arise by the arrival of a mysterious machine that produces pages predicting the future of the play's protagonists, affecting their lives and relationships in unexpected ways. A magical and haunting story about the choices we make, the accidents that happen and that moment -- The Violet Hour -- in which it is impossible to tell the difference.
 
THE VIOLET HOUR  features set design by Wilson Chin, costume design by Jessica Ford, lighting design by Chris Lee and sound design by Matt Nielson.  C. Renee Alexander is production stage manager.
 
Playwright Richard Greenberg is the Tony Award-winning author of Take Me Out, which received an acclaimed production on Broadway after successful runs at The Donmar on London's West End and The Public Theater in New York City. Greenberg's other plays include A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Everett Beekin, Hurrah at Last, Night and Her Stars, The Extra Man, Three Days of Rain, Eastern Standard, Jenny Keeps Talking, The Maderati, The Dazzle  Life Under Water and The Author's Voice. He is an associate artist at South Coast Repertory and a member of Ensemble Studio Theater.  His most recent play The Injured Party, received a world premiere this spring at the South Coast Rep. , The American Plan will have its Broadway premiere at MTC this fall, as well as a revival of Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, for which he has re-written the libretto for the Roundabout mounting.
 
Austin Lysy (John Pace Seavering) Off B'way: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Public); All That I Will Ever Be (NYTW); The Water's Edge (Second Stage); Manic Flight Reaction; Other People (Playwrights Horizons); Hobson's Choice (Atlantic). B'way: Macbeth. New York: The Fall (Toad Productions/Singularity); Hunter for Hunter Green (Singularity). Regional: Romeo & Juliet; The Water's Edge; The Chekhov Cycle; Loot; Philadelphia, Here I Come! (Williamstown); Butley (Huntington); Hay Fever (Westport). TV/Film: Law & Order: SVU; Law & Order; Gossip Girl; Six Degrees; Hack; Everybody's Fine; Poster Boy; Hitch; Brooklyn Lobster; Perfume. Graduate of Northwestern University.
 
Opal Alladin (Jessie Brewster) Broadway/New York credits include: Rebel Voices (Culture Project), A Midsummer Nights Dream (The Public Theater, NYSF), Romeo And Juliet (The Public, NYSF), On Golden Pond (Broadway), Susan & God (The Mint), Miss Julie (Cherry Lane), Two Noble Kinsmen (The Public Theater), Marco Polo Sings A Solo (Signature Theater). Regional Theater credits: King Stag (Yale Rep), Breath Boom (Yale Rep), Wit (Pittsburgh Public Theater), Twelfth Night (The Guthrie Theater), Trojan Women, As You Like It, Henry VI (The Shakespeare Theater), Home (Actors Theater of Louisville). Recent Film/TV credits: United 93, Jellysmoke, How To Seduce Difficult Women, Exposed, And Then Came Love, Brown Sugar, Rescue Me, Law & Order, Hack. Opal is a graduate of the Juilliard School.
 
Brian Avers (Denny) Brian is so pleased to return to Pittsfield, after playing Brindsley Miller in last year's Black Comedy. New York productions include: Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll, directed by Trevor Nunn; Lieutenant of Inishmore, by Martin McDonagh; King Lear at the Public Theater (Edgar); Szinhaz for Naked Angels; My Dog Heart for EST. TV/Film: Law & Order (NBC), The Progressives (PBS), How to Seduce Difficult Women, Julie/Julia, Gigantic, and the upcoming pilot episode of Castle for ABC. MFA: NYU; recipient of the Alberto Vilar Global Fellowship in the Arts. Love to Myvonwynn.
 
Heidi Armbruster (Rosamund) Heidi was seen last summer as Yelena in Uncle Vanya at Barrington Stage. New York credits include Tea and Sympathy (Drama League Nomination) and Good Morning Bill with the Keen Company, Sea of Tranquility at The Atlantic and The Fifth Column at The Mint. Regional Credits include work at The Guthrie, Seattle Rep., Actors Theater of Louisville, Baltimore Center Stage and American Conservatory (Goodman Choice Award for The Glass Menagerie). Film and TV Credits: Michael Clayton, Revolutionary Road, The Northern Kingdom, Law and Order, All My Children. MFA: ACT. For my mom, as always.
 
NAT DE WOLF (Gidger) Theatre credits include Take Me Out (Broadway, The Public Theater, The Repertory Theater of St Louis – Kevin Kline Award – and Hartford TheaterWorks), Betty's Summer Vacation(Playwrights Horizons, The Huntington Theater), Burn This - Irne Award - (The Huntington Theater), The Taming of the Shrew (Commonwealth Shakespeare), The Comedy of Errors (The Pittsburgh Public), The Accident and Tartuffe (American Repertory Theatre). He co-wrote and co-starred with Laura Kirk in the film Lisa Picard is Famous, which made its world premiere at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Other film and television credits include the Merchant/Ivory produced Heights, Trick, and the upcoming We Pedal Upwards, "Law & Order: SVU," and "Ed." Mr. DeWolf is a graduate of The Boston Conservatory and the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.
 
BARRY EDELSTEIN (Director) is familiar to Berkshire audiences from his many productions at the Williamstown Theater Festival, including As You Like It, with Gwyneth Paltrow, Arms and the Man, All My Sons, and Berskhire Village Idiot. The two latter works were later seen in New York. He was Artistic Director of New York's Classic Stage Company from 1998 to 2003. There he directed Richard III, with John Turturro and Julianna Margulies; The Winter's Tale, with David Strathairn; Steve Martin's The Underpants, which he commissioned; Ferdinand Bruckner's Race in his own adaptation; Ben Jonson's The Alchemist; and Moliere's The Misanthrope, with Roger Rees and Uma Thurman in her stage debut. At CSC he produced Waiting for Godot, with Turturro, Tony Shalhoub, and Christopher Lloyd; Pirandello's Naked, with Mira Sorvino; Beckett's Texts for Nothing, with Bill Irwin; Philip Glass's In the Penal Colony; and Ibsen's Ghosts, with Amy Irving. Other directing credits include Julius Caesar, with Jeffrey Wright in New York's "Shakespeare in the Park;" The Merchant of Venice and Steve Martin's WASP and Other Plays at the Public Theater. He has also directed at numerous regional theaters around the USA. His film My Lunch with Larry screened at film festivals around the country, including the Williamstown Film Festival. An author, Edelstein has written Thinking Shakespeare, and the forthcoming Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. He has lectured on theater around the USA and the world, and has written on the subject for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and American Theater Magazine. He has taught Shakespeare at the Juilliard School, NYU's Grad Acting Program, and USC, and is currently the director of the Public Theater's Shakespeare Initiative and Shakespeare Lab. He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. His favorite—and cutest—production is his daughter Tillirose, who just turned one.
 
Performances of The Violet Hour will be take place at Barrington Stage Company (30 Union Street) on the following schedule:  Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 pm, Thursdays at 8 pm, Fridays at 2 pm & 8 pm, Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 5 pm. Tickets are $36-$56.  Additional performance on Wednesday, July 30 at 2pm.  Preview tickets for July 17 and 18 are $20 and $15.  Pay What You Can performance for 35's and Under, Friday, July 25.