Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Cromer does things here on the Next stage -- a former school auditorium long inadequate for this troupe's creative needs -- that go beyond what such a prosaic theatrical space could ever deserve. And while I've no idea where this dark, strange and hopelessly bleak and quirky show should go next, it's a must see for Chicagoans interested in, and supportive of, intensely serious new stage musicals."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...The Adding Machine" -- which has been developed over a two-year period and has arrived highly polished down to the last detail -- comes with an audacious, sophisticated, richly textured modernist-meets-pastiche score. It is the work of Joshua Schmidt, who has contributed to dozens of Chicago theatrical productions and is here credited as composer, orchestrator, co-librettist with the very deft Jason Loewith, and co-sound designer with Jeff Dublinske."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...Kudos to Schmidt and Loewith. "The Adding Machine" is an arresting, original show that will likely put off as many - probably more - audience members as it attracts. So it has no catchy tunes; the fact that Next Theatre produced such a musical suggests that there is life yet in the moribund form."
Pioneer Press - Highly Recommended
"...What may be most impressive about Schmidt and Loewith's reworking of the Rice script is the way songs and dialogue flow seamlessly into each other. Most of the play is sung rather than spoken, but even the spoken lines have the rhythmic feeling of music...The Adding Machine itself has been reincarnated in this ambitious new version. It's a great accomplishment for the Next Theatre."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...The result is a compelling if uneven chamber opera. Dampening Rice's grotesque distortions makes the story's fantastical elements--and most of the final two scenes--feel tacked on, but in David Cromer's handsome, elemental staging the cast's underplaying resonates to powerful effect."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...“Wow!” That’s what the guy next to me kept on saying throughout Next Theatre Company’s world-premiere musical adaptation of The Adding Machine. For all I know he could have been a plant to influence critical opinion, but I found myself constantly echoing his sentiments (albeit silently)."
Gay Chicago Magazine - Recommended
"...The design team has done a notable job, with the highest honor given to Keith Parham, the lighting designer. His design is dead-on, thoroughly matching and enhancing the dynamics of the story - dark and ominous in the first half and utopian in the second. In one remarkable scene, as Zero is entering heaven, the lights are cast in such a way that projects Zero as having wings. As the lighting changes though, it is revealed that these “wings” are in fact just a coat thrown over his shoulder. This is some of the best lighting work seen in recent years."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Cromer has marshaled a top-notch cast (you can’t not watch Warren), while designers Keith Parham (lights) and Matthew J. York (set) supply stunning work: smoky, sickly pale spots amid dystopic spaces. A precise calculus informs Cromer’s staging; after Zero flips and offs his boss, the dance between a prison-encased Zero and his wife mesmerizes. As is, the stylistic emphasis overtakes Rice’s theme, but that theme hits, even so."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...Next Theatre is known for doing daring, controversial and provocative plays. Some are marvelous, some miss the mark, but all are ambitious and carefully crafted. With The Adding Machine, I’m baffled. I’m not sure I understand what was attempted by this weird show?"
Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended
"...Composer Joshua Schmidt’s original score leaves much to be desired. Of course, it’s really unfair to hold this World Premiere adaptation of Elmer Rice’s 1923 socialist manifesto to the standards of the traditional Broadway "book musical." Just as the original non-musical jolted the standard issue realism theatre of the day with its experimental expressionist style, so does this challenging, albeit flawed work take a number of fascinating artistic chances."
