Endpapers, a new play by Thomas McCormack, directed by Pamela Berlin, running at the Variety Arts Theatre, will play its 100th performance on Sept. 7.

The show, by second-time playwright Thomas McCormack, opened June 23 with little fanfare and has turned into a modest hit.

In an original promotion, the producers of the new play—which is about the publishing industry—offered a free ticket during previews to anyone who brought a rejection letter to the Variety Arts Theatre box office.

Some of those rejection letters may have come from McCormack himself, who 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." His play is about a family-owned publishing house. The venture is produced by Benjamin Mordecai. Pamela Berlin directs.

In an article in the New York Times, McCormack told how he wrote a play in his youth which got him into the Edward Albee-Richard Barr Playwrights Unit in the late '60s. But when he unexpectedly became head of St. Martin's, he put his playwriting career on hold—for 30 years. Tim Hopper tops the cast of Endpapers. 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.

The Variety Arts is located at 110 Third Avenue (at 14th Street). Call (212) 239-6200 for ticket information.

— By Robert Simonson