Dan's Papers - April 25, 2008 - Margaret Cotter

The music...It sounds like Philip Glass. Maybe not - more like Stravinsky, Rake's Progress. Wait. That part sounds like Barber - Vanessa. Oh, okay, Sondheim, Into the Woods. No...Berg, definitely Berg - Woyzzeck.

The singer...Sounds like a Broadway belter. Hmm. Maybe pop or cabaret? No, more legit. Oh, she's an opera singer.

These thoughts rushed through my mind during the first five minutes of Adding Machine. Searing impressions that disappeared as quickly as they made their marks. This new musical, imported from Chicago and currently playing in New York's Minetta Lane Theater, is defiantly uncategorizable, incongruous yet incredibly cohesive. Just when you think you have it figured out, something unexpected, unexplained yet completely understandable happens. Adding Machine has been called "improbably brilliant" by The New York Times -- a description as oxymoronic as the show itself.

But the theater community is decisive in its opinion. In Chicago, the play won the Joseph Jefferson Award - that town's version of the Tony. In New York, in addition to the Times' rave, TimeOut suggested it might be "the best musical of 2008." It was nominated for six Lucille Lortel Awards including best musical, director, lighting design, costumes, lead actor, lead actress; and The Drama League nominated it for best musical on Monday.

One of the three producers credited with bringing this remarkable show to New York is Margaret Cotter, an ivy-league educated former Brooklyn D.A. turned theater producer who splits her time between her apartment in New York, her home in the Amagansett dunes, and anywhere the pursuit of the next hit show takes her. When she finds it, the decision is clear, as it was with Adding Machine.

"Very rarely do I find shows that sustain a style so well," said Cotter in an interview in Amagansett. "It's like a film. I've been involved with so many shows, but not like this."

Cotter's producing credits during the last ten years include Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, Bat Boy and Lypsinka! (Off-Broadway); and The Flying Karamazov Brothers' Catch!, Forbidden Broadway, and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change in Chicago. She was a co-producer of one Broadway musical, the promising Elvis tribute All Shook Up in 2004. "I thought it was a shoo-in," said Cotter, a slim woman with steely blue eyes contrasted by an ever-present smile. "But it lost money. People wanted Elvis."

Unlike a show based on a veritable household name, Adding Machine came without that comfort level of familiarity. Directed by David Cromer and written by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt, who also composed the score, it opened February 25, has been extended two weeks past its mid-June deadline, and according to Cotter, it will most likely be extended again. "Our advance sales are growing every week," she said, "which means word of mouth is happening."

Adding Machine is based on Elmer Rice's 1923 play about a hapless number cruncher who, after 25 years of service to the same company, is replaced by a machine and subsequently murders his boss. In this musical adaptation, almost completely through-composed, German Expressionism meets theater of the absurd, meets modern opera, meets performance art. In other words, uncategorizable. Cotter was introduced to Adding Machine by Scott Morfee, who runs the Barrow Street Theater with his partner Tom Wirtshafter and had seen the show in Chicago. "I knew Scott from the industry. He called me about the play in October," she said. "The show had closed - it only had a six-week run. I got the music and the script and was captivated."

Cotter was quick to admit that there was another factor, beyond her impressions and Morfee's recommendation, that helped seal the deal. "It was the reviews. The reviews were really important," she said. "I knew the critics who wrote them. I knew their taste."

The three decided to take the chance with Adding Machine, but it was a calculated risk. "It helps being the landlord," said Cotter who, in addition to producing and co-producing, will also "four-wall" a show - that is, book it in one of her own venues. She is president of Liberty Theaters, which owns and operates the Orpheum, Union Square and Minetta Lane in New York, as well as the Royal George, a four-theater complex in Chicago.

"There is a 90% risk of failure in theater," she said. "The minimum cost to produce a show in a smaller off-Broadway house is $500-600K. I wouldn't recommend producing on your own - I stay away from producing solo in New York."

Cotter grew up in Los Angeles in a family that owned movie houses including New York's City Cinemas. She studied law at Georgetown and became an assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn. "It was fun - there was a huge amount of theatricality," she said. "It was a very busy office. I tried a lot of cases and I got a little burned out." The year she left the world of criminal justice, Cotter's father entered the world of New York theater, soon to be followed by his daughter.

"My father was negotiating to buy the Minetta Lane - he wanted to turn it into a small single screen art theater," she said. "The owners had booked a show for three months, just as he was closing on the deal. The play opened - it was Other People's Money, and it ran for five years."

Ironically, Adding Machine is having its run at the Minetta Lane, 10 years after the 1998 acquisition. That same year, Cotter made her first foray into the business, as a coproducer of the blues/rock musical, Love Janis, based on the letters of Janis Joplin. It ran in one of Cotter's Chicago venues, and was booked at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor a few seasons ago.

In 2001, some of the "other people's money" needed for a new production belonged to Cotter. For Bat Boy, the hilarious, ripped-from-the-tabloids musical, she invested for the first time and negotiated her first deal. "I met the director. Scott Schwartz - Steven Schwartz's son," said Cotter. "I wasn't able to see the workshop production of Bat Boy, but I read the script - it was such camp, but so well done. And as soon as I heard the music, I was sold."

Bat Boy opened in New York in February at the Union Square Theater. "It was very well received by the New York critics," said Cotter. "By August it really hit its stride. Then September 11 happened." While Bat Boy went on to have a life, the show never regained its footing in New York.

Not so for Adding Machine, which has been on a steady forward march. "The minute the reviews came out, two film companies and two Broadway producers approached us. And there was interest for the publishing rights," said Cotter. "But I want to hold off, maybe get more nominations."

This past Monday, Cotter sent an email that read: "Just in...We received four nominations from New York Outer Critics - Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical, Outstanding New Score (On or Off-Broadway), Outstanding Director of a Musical (On or Off-Broadway) - David Cromer, and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical - Amy Warren. This is really great for us."

Welcome to the world of "beyond your wildest dreams" for Cotter and her team.

"It has been such a great experience," she said. "Tom, Scott, David, Jason, Joshua - we're a small group and we balance each other. There are no egos. None. Everyone is just trying to make this show work."