About the Play:

The Adding Machine is a full-length drama by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elmer L. Rice. The story of Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless corporation. After 25 years on the job, Mr. Zero discovers that he will be replaced – by a machine. His story of anger, pain, loneliness, and redemption will resonate with contemporary audiences, who often prefer to communicate with loved ones via Facebook, Twitter, and text messages rather than face to face.

The Adding Machine directly addresses the question of advancing technology and its effect on human relationships. Have you ever been passed over for a promotion, or gone years without a raise? Ever felt like murdering your boss? Then meet Mr. Zero, a hard-working, pseudo-Everyman. As the name would suggest, Mr. Zero is just that – a nobody – a hapless cog in the vast machine of modern business. He is a neurotic, number crunching accountant who goes to work every day at a monotonous and wearisome job where he's exploited. At home, his unsympathetic wife constantly nags him. When the company he's faithfully worked at for the past twenty-five years informs him that, instead of giving him a promotion, they'll be giving him the boot and replacing him with an adding machine, his pain and rage are so severe that Mr. Zero goes berserk and kills his boss without remorse. Mr. Zero is convicted and hanged for his crime, but in the afterlife is presented with freedom of choice and opportunities unlike anything he's experienced. Will he improve his existence, or will fear hold him back, stuck in a rut, doomed to repeat his decisions ad infinitum? Written in 1923, the themes in this American classic are still incredibly relevant to today's technologically advanced society. Whether it be mechanization in the workplace or outsourcing, there will always be changes in pursuit of more profits – forever making the displaced workforce a flashpoint topic. While we as a society are becoming more "connected" to each other at a staggering rate, it begs the question what is the quality of this interfacing? Is our connectivity detached and ultimately de-humanizing? Mr. Zero's story will give your audience a new perspective on their job, their life, and what it means to be human.

The Adding Machine premiered in 1923 at The Garrick Theatre on Broadway in New York City and was revived in 1951 at the Henry Street Playhouse. The play is regularly performed in regional, middle school, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 9 female, 14 male

What people say:

"Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist satire seems abrasively modern in its attack on the dehumanising effect of industrial capitalism. ... A real discovery, in which the bitter Rice tragically shows how we grow to love the machines by which we are enslaved." — The Guardian

"Elmer Rice's 1923 landmark expressionist satire could well have been written last year. Racism, sexual harassment, corporate greed and downsizing are all issues the play humorously essays." — LA Weekly

"In a world in which job outsourcing and its economic aftershocks have become weapons of political aggression, it's uncanny how timely Elmer Rice's script remains despite having originally premiered in 1923." — Arts In LA

"Rice has produced a remarkable body of work – large, varied, experimental and honest … As a consistently experimental playwright he is rivalled in our theater only by O'Neill." — Robert Hogan, from The Independence of Elmer Rice

About the Playwright:

Elmer Rice (1892-1967) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist whose major contribution to American literature was an innovative approach to dramatic art and use of the flashback technique from the movies on the stage. A native of New York City, he studied law and passed his bar exams. However, he immediately began writing, and, from 1914 until the mid-1940s, he was one of the most prominent playwrights and theatrical directors in America, and made important contributions to motion pictures, both as an author and screenwriter. During his 45 years in the theater, Rice wrote 50 full-length plays, 4 novels, and several film and television scripts, as well as his autobiography. His most famous play The Adding Machine, satirized the dehumanizing effects of machines, but Street Scene a realistic drama that focused on the tenement life in New York City slums won him the greatest acclaim, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Dream Girl, a psychoanalytical fantasy, was his final popular success.