I was talking on the phone with Mequon composer Josh Schmidt last week, the morning after his musical "A Minister's Wife" opened at Lincoln Center in New York. The New York Times critic had been very favorable, and tough Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal had written, "The most important new musical since 'The Light in the Piazza' has come to New York."

But Schmidt wasn't celebrating. He had yet to read the reviews because he was too busy working on his next projects. Schmidt was recording that day his original music and sound design for a production of "Pygmalion" at Houston's prestigious Alley Theatre.

Then there was the music and sound design he was creating for "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, and his work with "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, a major summer fest in New England.

We must not forget the sound design he is creating for "The Tempest" at the American Players Theatre in Spring Green. Schmidt could be on a tour of the highest profile and most respected theater companies in North America.

It's a wonder he has time to attend the Milwaukee premiere of his first hit musical, "Adding Machine," at the Skylight Opera Theatre Friday night. He actually wrote the show, which cleaned up on awards in Chicago in 2007 and New York in 2008, with the Skylight in mind.

"Adding Machine" is the one-act musical version of Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionistic drama "The Adding Machine." The basic plot line certainly resonates today.

An accountant with 25 years of service to his employer learns he will soon be replaced by an adding machine. The numbers cruncher, named Mr. Zero, kills his boss in a fit of rage, is convicted of murder, executed, and wakes up in a heaven-like place. The story then spins off into a dreamy denouement.

It's a subjective and distorted 1920's version of going postal.

Rice was a prolific and influential writer in the first half of the 20th century whose work has been largely forgotten. An idealist, he was concerned about a range of social issues, and he was the first American dramatist to address Nazism.

Schmidt was sound designing a production at Chicago's Next Theatre Company when its artistic director, Jason Loewith, proposed he write the score for a musical adaptation of "The Adding Machine." The two men collaborated on the libretto, and the show put Schmidt, a UWM music grad, on the national theater map.

Charles Isherwood of the New York Times called the musical "impossibly bleak, improbably brilliant," adding the piece "is impressive in its fidelity to both the crisp letter and the mordant spirit of Rice's Expressionistic play."

"Adding Machine" is short on dialog, using Schmidt's extremely eclectic score to advance the story. Loewith has described the music as "a deliriously wild ride from dissonance to heart breaking melody." Gospel, Tin Pan Alley and early 20th century modernist are among its influences.

Schmidt, who is 35, credits the Skylight's 1992 production of "Candide" at its old Jefferson Street theater as the catalyst for his pursuance of an arts career. "For the early part of my career, Skylight was my artistic home outside of my music composition and technology studies at UWM," he says.

"My career radiates outwardly in concentric circles from my formative experiences in Milwaukee."

Ask former Skylight artistic director Richard Carsey about Josh Schmidt, and he can immediately tell you about their first meeting in 1996. "I remember Josh being rail thin, all eyes and painfully quiet until he started talking about music.

"Then suddenly he was voluble, passionate, unstoppable as the words poured out. He thought then, and does now, in huge ideas."

In addition to his musical talent, Carsey believes Schmidt excels in his ability to collaborate with others, an essential quality of successful theater. "Listening, responding, augmenting, enlarging on ideas that are put forth by everyone working on each of the elements of a show -- Josh became a master of that, and it's still the hallmark of his work."

Carsey should know. He is the music supervisor of Schmidt's new New York hit, "A Minister's Wife," which has a book by Austin Pendleton and lyrics written by Jan Levy Tranen. The collaboration continues.