By Kenneth Jones
10 Jun 2003

The New York premiere of Richard Greenberg's The Violet Hour at Broadway's Biltmore Theatre just picked up two more stars: Laura Benanti of Nine and Into the Woods and Scott Foley of TV's "Felicity."

A spokesman confirmed Benanti, Foley, Mario Cantone, Jasmine Guy and Tony Award-winner Robert Sean Leonard (The Invention of Love and the current Long Day's Journey Into Night) are attached to the New York run of the work, which got its world premiere in fall 2002 at South Coast Rep in California (Cantone appeared there). The play has also been seen in a separate staging by Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago.

Greenberg, who won the Tony Award for Broadway's current Take Me Out, set The Violet Hour in 1919. It concerns a driven young publisher at the start of his career and the mysterious machine that could radically change his future.

The renovated Biltmore Theatre, the new Broadway home for Manhattan Theatre Club, will relight Oct. 16 with The Violet Hour. Opening is Nov. 6.

For information, visit www.manhattantheatreclub.org.