Man behind Mr. Zero gains much from role

David Benoit currently resides in character-actor heaven. Which is located, if you're wondering, at 14th and P streets NW -- on the fourth floor.

That's where he stars as the decidedly antiheroic Mr. Zero in Studio Theatre's "Adding Machine: A Musical," whose run has been extended twice (it's up through Nov. 15).

Based on Elmer Rice's expressionist 1920s play, the 90-minute piece (with music by Joshua Schmidt, libretto by Jason Loewith and Schmidt, directed by Loewith) has Benoit walking on air, though he plays a disgruntled (to put it mildly) employee who resorts to murder, despises his wife, toys with a secretary and even grumbles in an idyllic afterlife.

"When a character role of this proportion comes along that has depth, and you really have to show dramatic chops, it's a character man's dream," says Benoit, who accepts both the Americanized (Benoyt) and French (Benois) pronunciations of his name. Now, he adds, "I'm the evil fat guy instead of the funny fat guy."

Mr. Zero is dour, rage-filled and thuggish, but Benoit found a connection that helped him understand the character. The actor's father drove a bus for 40 years. "My dad worked his lifetime and provided beautifully for his family," says the actor. "I feel the empathy for Zero, because I think of my dad, who, like millions in this country, make this country work and are never rewarded." Zero, a numbers man in a faceless corporation, snaps after he learns he's being replaced by an adding machine.

It's not always clear to the actor whether audiences, too, empathize with Mr. Zero. Benoit describes Zero's big confession scene as "8 1/2 minutes of in-your-face nervous breakdown. Once in a while there'll be a little smattering of applause. I'm flattered, but maybe they're just glad I got through it," he jokes.

The 43-year-old Massachusetts native toured the country in "Avenue Q" for three years, and spent 4 1/2 years on Broadway and two on tour in "Les Misérables." "Adding Machine," he says, "knocks the wind out of my sails. . . . There's a lot in that hour and a half. Just the screaming alone."

Well, screaming and fancy singing, with tight, dissonant harmonies and opposing rhythms among cast and musicians. It is, says Benoit, "by far the most difficult music I've ever had to perform. . . . If you miss a beat, you're doomed."

Benoit's goal is to play another leading man who's long on rage and short on charm -- Sweeney Todd. "That's another role that's a throat-buster," he notes, cheerily.

Gift for Imagination Stage

Imagination Stage in Bethesda will receive $2.5 million over 10 years -- a gift from Bethesda arts philanthropist Carol Trawick and her late husband James, who died last year. The money will retire the company's construction debt, incurred in completing its six-year-old space on Auburn Avenue. Though the Trawicks have a foundation, the Imagination Stage gift is private. It was announced at an Oct. 24 benefit gala. The company's unusual $13 million building -- a theater, classrooms, gift shop and cafe carved into one side of a county parking garage -- will be named for the Trawicks.

"It was my late husband's decision and mine. As Jimmy would say, it's for the kids," says Carol Trawick, who has taken her grandchildren to Imagination Stage and has known founder and Executive Director Bonnie Fogel for years. Trawick speaks of "the consistency of the mission" at the company, which offers professional performances and classes for kids of all abilities. The mission, she says, is "to give joy to the children in discovering their own creativity. . . . Very few of them will grow up and be entertainers, but they will be in the audience, and they'll be an appreciative audience. And furthermore, you bring that creativity to whatever you do in life."

Imagination Stage also recently received a $77,500 New Generations grant from the Theatre Communications Group to help expand offerings to children between ages 2 and 4.