Skylight Opera Theatre Presents Adding Machine - A Musical

By: Gabrielle Sierra Apr. 21, 2011

Skylight Opera Theatre of Milwaukee, Wisconsin will open the new musical, Adding Machine on May 20, 2011. Performances continue through June 12, 2011 and will be held on the Cabot Theatre stage, inside the Broadway Theatre Center located at 158 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Darkly comic and heartbreakingly beautiful, Adding Machine- A Musical, is an adaptation of Elmer Rice's incendiary 1923 play. It tells the story of Mr. Zero, who after 25 years of service to his company is replaced by a mechanical adding machine. An eclectic score gives passionate and memorable voice to this stylish and stylized production, which follows Zero's incredible journey after he is replaced by the adding machine.

Milwaukee native, Joshua Schmidt says he wrote the Adding Machine- A Musical with Skylight in mind.

"In 1992, I saw my very first theatrical production - Candide at Skylight's old Jefferson Street space. One can pinpoint my interest in pursuing a career in the arts to this very moment. For the early part of my career, Skylight was my artistic home outside of my music composition and technology studies at UWM. My career radiates outwardly in concentric circles from my formative experiences in Milwaukee.

"Back at Skylight, I think of three individuals who influenced my life profoundly as a musician, Jamie Johns, Mike Lorenz, and especially Richard Carsey. I remain in awe of what could be accomplished with just those three guys playing 2 pianos and percussion. When the time came to actually add my two-cents to the continuum of musical theatre, this was the model that I hung my hat on. The music and orchestrations for Adding Machine, in all their sound and fury, are a direct consequence of those three guys and what they are capable of." - Josh Schmidt, composer and co-Librettist.

Adding Machine- A Musical premiered at Next Theatre Company in 2007 where it won a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, Musical. That production went on to a six-month commercial run Off-Broadway in 2008, winning four Obie Awards for direction, design and performance, four Lortel Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards.

The Skylight production features several cast members who have been involved in previous productions of Adding Machine. As understudy, Toni Inzeo (Mrs. Two) regularly performed the role of Daisy in the Chicago production where Jeremy Ramey also music directed. Niffer Clarke performed the role of Mrs. One and understudied and went on for the role of Mrs. Zero in the New York City production.

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