TESLA
a New Musical
&
Elektrical Spectacle
A journey into the heart and mind of the great inventor.
Music & Lyrics: EJ Reyes
Book: Spencer Tandy
Nikola Tesla was one of the most extraordinary human beings who ever lived.
A Poet of Science.
He was responsible for some of the most life-altering inventions that the entire world depends on to this very day.
Yet very few have even heard of him.
What’s wrong with this picture?
TESLA
A New Musical & Elektrical Spectacle
Alternating Current. Wireless transmission. Radio. Television. Remote control. The foundations of the electrical world you live in — Tesla built them. Everyone knows his name. Almost nobody knows his story.
He had a partner: George Westinghouse. He had enemies with deeper pockets — JP Morgan. Thomas Edison. The men who controlled capital and credit. History calls it the War of the Currents. What it really was: a fight over who gets to own the future. Tesla was right about everything. He lost anyway.
Ragtime. Vaudevillian lunatic show-biz. Serbian folk music. Soaring ballads. Driving rock anthems. Twenty-first-century electronic. The score covers as much ground as the man did.
We tell our story in an unusual way — non-linear, driven by supernatural forces, built on a theatrical book that can hold both the science and the heartbreak. The show is designed to make the electricity visible in every sense.
But all is focused on the truly human story of a man against time.
News
The Story So Far
In 2016, Spencer Tandy joined as book writer. Long-time Tesla obsessive. He and EJ Reyes — composer, lyricist, electrical engineer turned theater artist — got to work. What they built: a show with twenty-nine original songs, fully demo-recorded. A dual-timeline structure. A character named Elektra — in the show since its inception in 2012 — […]
