Failed novelists rejoice!

In an original promotion, the producers of Off Broadway's new play by Thomas McCormack, Endpapers, about the publishing industry, are offering a free ticket to anyone who brings a rejection letter to the Variety Arts Theatre box office.

The letter must be on official publishing house letterhead and will net the owner a free ticket, plus a half-price companion ticket, to any performance during the preview period of June 11-22. The play will open on June 23.

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 will be produced by Benjamin Mordecai. Pamela Berlin directs.

Tim Hopper tops the cast of Endpapers, a new drama by Thomas McCormack. 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