Tim Hopper tops the cast of Endpapers, a new drama by Thomas McCormack which will be the next tenant at Off Broadway's Variety Arts Theatre. The play will begin previews on June 11 and open on June 23.

Hopper has appeared on Broadway in Present Laughter with Frank Langella and Off-Broadway in Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul. He is a member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Also in the cast are Shannon Burkett (The Ride Down Mt. Morgan), William Cain (A Delicate Balance), Beth Dixon (Wrong Mountain), Alex Draper, Bruce McCarty, Pippa Pearthree, Greg Salata, Maria Thayer, Neil Vipond and Oliver Wadsworth.

McCormack, 70, is the retired CEO of St. Martin's Press, where he edited such titles as "The Silence of the Lambs" and "All Things Great and Small." Appropriately enough, his play is about a family-owned publishing house. The venture will be produced by Benjamin Mordecai. Pamela Berlin directs.

* Eve Ensler's latest work, Necessary Targets, which premiered in fall 2001 at Hartford Stage in Connecticut and opened Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Feb. 28, ended its commercial Off Broadway run April 21.

—By Robert Simonson