Adding Machine, Directed by Its Co-Writer, Begins DC Premiere Oct. 14

By Kenneth Jones
14 Oct 2009

Jason Loewith, the co-librettist of the acclaimed musical Adding Machine, makes his Washington, DC, directorial debut staging his show at the Studio Theatre. Previews begin Oct. 14.

The new production — representing the DC premiere of the dark musical — will play to Nov. 1 at Stage 4 at the Studio Theatre. Opening night is Oct. 18.

A collaborative effort of playwright Jason Loewith and composer Joshua Schmidt, the musical is an adaptation of the 1923 expressionist play The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice.

According to Studio Theatre, "With music reflecting its 1920s period influences — early-20th-century modernists, Tin Pan Alley and gospel — this work invokes a vision of American life in the 1920s at odds with that decade's reigning image as a happy-go-lucky, free-for-all era ended by the Depression."

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The musical play (making its DC-area premiere) focuses on the drab workaday life of Mr. Zero, who is fired from his job after 25 years of service. An act of violence takes him to a new plane.

The cast includes David Benoit as Mr. Zero, with Joanne Schmoll (as Mrs. Zero), Kristin Jepperson (as Daisy), Stephen Gregory Smith, Dan Via, Channez McQuay, Katie Nigsch, Joe Peck and Thomas Adrian Simpson.

Adding Machine was acclaimed in Chicago. The production was re-created Off-Broadway. A cast album preserves the score. Schmidt and Loewith share libretto credit.

Before recently relocating to Washington DC, writer-director Loewith served as artistic director of Next Theatre Company in Chicago. With Next Theatre Company, Loewith directed area premieres of playwrights such as Paula Vogel, John Patrick Shanley, Christopher Durang and Lynn Nottage. He has received Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award and After Dark Award for his work as a writer, director and producer. He is currently the executive director for the National New Play Network.

According to Loewith, Adding Machine will "give the audience one 90-minute emotional ride, to take them from laughter to tears and back again, massaging their brains along the way."

Loewith will be joined by Helen Hayes Award-winning musical director Christopher Youstra, who has previously provided the music for The Studio 2ndStage's productions of Fucking A and Jerry Springer: The Opera and for productions in theatres across the Washington, DC area.

Set designer Debra Booth will reconfigure The Studio Theatre's Stage 4 into a thrust theatre.

The creative team also includes Michael Lincoln (lighting designer), Ivania Stack (costume designer) and Neil McFadden (sound designer).

Teamed with The Solid Gold Cadillac and American Buffalo, Adding Machine rounds out Studio Theatre's "Money Plays" series. The production is billed as a Special Event in the season.

The Studio Theatre is at 1501 14th Street, NW (Northeast corner of 14th and P Streets). For more information, call (202) 332-3300 or visit www.studiotheatre.org.