Guest Blog: Composer Joshua Schmidt On ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL

One could say that the Machine chose me first, then I chose it. Adapting Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist juggernaut was the long-time dream of librettist Jason Loewith. Apparently he had approached other composers with the project to no avail. When he finally inquired as to my interest in the project in January of 2004, I was working as a sound designer on a show he was producing at the Next Theatre Company in Evanston, Illinois, where he served as Artistic Director. Up to that point, I had never written a musical, nor did envision myself writing one and I had never read, seen or even heard of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine.

I certainly was no stranger to musical theatre - I had years of accompanying and rehearsal pianist experience behind me, and my earlier years were spent slumming around the halls of the Skylight Opera in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Alas, somewhere between then and 2004, honestly my interest in musicals had faded a bit, as I became increasingly more active in contemporary music and composition, electronic music, jazz and rock and roll. Within this music I still found the challenge, the surprise, and the edge that seemed to elude me in new musicals.

Yet here I was, a 27-year-old composer/sound designer with few if any significant credits to my name outside of the Milwaukee/Chicago area, being presented with my first commission. And if I finished it, Jason said Next would produce it. Maybe - if it was good. This was not to be a high-paying gig.

I didn't hesitate. I said yes. I committed to the project.

Then I read it...

Nothing about the play seemed to radiate anything conventional. Each scene seemed stylistically juxtaposed with the one preceding it. The density in which Rice meditated upon the meaning of human life, mixing socialism with reincarnation, Taylorism, xenophobia, the urban experience, love, and technology seemed at times impossible to penetrate.

Initial stages of the development of the piece involved Jason and I extensively cutting and redacting the text, compressing two scenes into a wholly new one, cutting the cast size down, and fretting about what orchestration would work for the piece, fit in the space, and not bankrupt the theatre. All of these things needed to be considered because adapting this show for this space meant confronting the practicalities of producing in the writing process, not after.

One of the great things about Rice's text that suited my interests and abilities is its eclecticism. With my formal training as a composer (of new music, not theatre music), my wide range of musical interests and experience, and my short-yet-obsessive attention span, I had become a "jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none" composer. I never was able to commit or devote myself to anyone particular style, like classical performing, rock or jazz, because I would eventually get bored and hunger for something different.

For me, the theatre became a perfect environment to embrace and experience all that interested me in a practical way. And in the end, I did not want to produce a stylistic grab-bag of a piece, but a fully-formed, personally voiced new entity. Style has never interested me. Furthermore, I have always wished that the concept of musical genre was invisible - that we as listeners never let an industry-given genre label interfere with or influence how we respond to what we hear.

The first song I presented to Jason was "Something to be Proud Of" - which I was convinced would get me booted off the project. The piece did scare him a little and he reminded me that it might be a good idea to not frighten too many people away with the rest of the music. I agreed and understood his concern, but noted we were adapting Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine and not Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Jason is a wonderful collaborator and did not fire me.

At one point during another workshop of this show, David Cromer (who directed the original US production) leaned back in his seat, pushing his glasses back toward his brow, and told me, "Josh, I may be a stupid person, but I am also very smart. There is tremendous value in this observation. If you do not cut the air out of this song and make it go faster, I will lose interest after two minutes."

Startled, I then cut three minutes out of the original version. It was like squeezing water out of solid rock; nevertheless, this direction made "Something to be Proud of" the sort of the hell-raising six-minute opening number it is now.

From this one can conclude that creating successful musicals seldom happens in vacuum - I personally need people to challenge and deepen my ideas, or else how could they ever withstand public scrutiny? I took Cromer's note. In fact, I took every musical note Tony gave me. For that matter, I took every musical note that anyone gave me, or at least tried to. Happily. It takes a village, as they say.

Of all the songs in this show, "Zero's Confession" is probably the number I am most attached to. It took me a year and a half of just staring at the original Rice text wondering "How the hell do I write a musical number eight minutes long for a guy named Mr. Zero? How does a guy like that sing?"

But there we were in 2007, a year out from the largest financial collapse since the Great Depression - and here we are now navigating the morass of Britain exiting the EU. That exercise of giving voice to the disenfranchised allowed me to empathize - without condoning the vile aspects of his rant - with the plight of those left behind without a net. Is this not perhaps the first tiny step toward understanding, if not reconciliation?

As a piece of music, Adding Machine often operates like something Benjamin Britten might write - if he liked the band Fugazi. At many points during this piece, the lead, the chorus, and each instrument of the pit (piano, synthesizer, voice) are playing something completely different rhythmically and melodically independent of each other. Orchestration, for me, has always been PART of the composition process. Here I needed to rely on such complexity in order to give the illusion of a much larger ensemble supporting the show.

Many people have told me in Chicago, New York, and in subsequent productions of the show (regardless of what they thought of the piece) that they had seldom seen or been a part of a theatrical piece so integrated from the ground up: lights, sets, costumes, sound, music, script, direction, production, performances - all of it. I don't know how that happened - perhaps the discipline of the storefront has amazingly seeped into the script and score. It was most certainly a team effort. For that I am eternally grateful. And isn't that how the theatre should be?

Adding Machine: A Musical is at Finborough Theatre 28 September-22 October

Photo credit: Alex Brenner