Before exploring the creative genesis of the world-premiere musical Flashes of Light opening at the Sierra Madre Playhouse on May 25th and running until June 9th, let’s look skyward.
There, do you see?
Do you see the crown flash atop that dark, wind-driven, lightning-strewn cloud? (A “crown flash” is a rare electrical phenomenon: a pillar of light, flashing like a saber or spear, gracing a thunderhead.)
Or do you see a swift chariot, drawn by black steeds, and at the reins a shining goddess wielding a thunderbolt?
Perhaps that “Or” signals our distance from the cosmos of Homer’s Iliad, where in encountering Athena the armed charioteer and her thunderstorm, a single turbulent onrushing splendor overwhelms a mortal.
Yet even among the ancient Greeks such an “Or” became operative among those who read the gods and goddesses in the Iliad as allegories of forces such as fire, storm, and lightning.
Nowadays, we tend to think of such things as lightning or electricity without reference to a deity. Indeed, for scientists, the only questions are: what is the verifiable data, how can that data be quantified, and what patterns are evident in that quantified data?
But wait a second.
In New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, when J. Robert Oppenheimer witnessed his physics’ success, the first atomic bomb’s flash, a line about a deity from Hindu scripture crossed his mind: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Oppenheimer was a rigorous scientist, yet he tied his invention to a divinity.
Invention: that’s something the sciences and the arts have in common. In the arts, invention often arrives from a divinity, a muse. What about the sciences?
Consider the scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla (1856–1943). Born to Serbian parents in a region of the Austrian Empire that is now Croatia, Tesla immigrated to the US in 1884. There he continued his research into electricity and his invention of electrical devices.
Were Tesla’s visions of electrical inventions sparked by a muse?
Yes, answers Flashes of Light.
The new musical covers Tesla’s life in America and battle with Thomas Edison over which type of electricity should become standard. Tesla championed alternating current (AC), while Edison championed direct current (DC).
But at the heart of the musical is Tesla’s relationship with his muse, Electra.
No, not that Electra, the murderous lady in tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides. Tesla’s Electra comes from elsewhere in Greek tradition.
His Electra is an Oceanid, a daughter of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. This Electra is a minor goddess of lightning storms. If you think the major goddess of lightning storms Athena would make a fine mentor for Electra, you are not wrong. Athena shows up in Flashes of Light.
Recently at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, before a rehearsal, I enjoyed a chat with the musical’s co-creators, Billy Larkin and Ron Boustead, and the production’s director, Jon Lawrence Rivera. Heading into Flashes of Light, each had already had an impressive career.
Larkin is an award-winning pianist and composer with forty years in the music biz and has performed at venues across the globe.
Boustead is an Emmy-nominated lyricist. He has written songs for dozens of pop and jazz recording artists, including Deniece Williams, Jonathan Butler, and the vocal group The Four Tops.
Lawrence Rivera is the founder and Artistic Director of Playwrights’ Arena in Hollywood, for which he has directed several world-premiere productions. The recipient of a Career Achievement Award from Stage Raw, he has also received a New York Fringe Festival Award, an LA Weekly Award, and five Ovation Award nominations.
How did Flashes of Light get going?
Thirty-five or so years ago, Larkin and Boustead first crossed paths in Cincinnati, Ohio, and became friends. They met through their wives, who were both modern dancers, and they clicked because they both loved music. Then they went their separate ways.
Several decades later, Larkin began writing music about Tesla and sent it to Boustead. Working in collaboration, as they developed the tunes into a musical, their friendship renewed and deepened. They found that the personal and artistic trust they had built between themselves was crucial for their collaboration on Flashes.
The initial idea was to do a musical about Tesla. Then came the thought to bring in Electra. A muse arrived, as tends to happen.
Asked whether they credit the notion of a muse, both answered in the affirmative. Larkin elaborated: “I would say most of my work comes to me unbidden. It’s like opening up a gift. And what I try to do is just to be receptive. When I sit down at the piano, it’s almost like I’m remembering a song that already exists.”
About muses and inspiration, Lawrence Rivera added, “I grew up in the years of Stephen Sondheim, in the years of Jason Robert Brown. And so there’s the work that they’ve done that has really inspired me. I think the idea of muses is something that is real for people, and some people don’t have just one muse.”
More than one muse? Each project, Lawrence Rivera suggested, may have its own muse, its own special energy and inspiration. Part of what inspired him to join the Flashes of Light production was how the musical sparks the desire to know more about Tesla and the events surrounding his life.
To write the musical’s libretto, aka “the book,” Larkin and Boustead delved into Tesla’s biography. Was the inventor of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain, a friend of Tesla? Yes. Was Tesla born during a fierce lightning storm? Yes. Did Tesla foresee the cellular phone? Yes. Did Tesla experience visionary flashes of light sparking his process of invention? Yes.
Our conversation wrapped up, and the rehearsal began with production choreographer Tania Possick working cast members through the dance moves for the musical’s song “Light It Up.”
Possick prompted. Possick demonstrated moves. She set the beat. The cast adjusted stances. The cast refined their steps. They sang. The energy of the dance and of the song were meshing seamlessly before the rehearsal’s first hour closed.
“Light It Up” is both a catchy and a musically sophisticated tune.
In our conversation, Larkin cited the jazz-rock of Steely Dan as a recognizable influence on the music for Flashes. Boustead agreed that he and Larkin have been influenced by hipper pop music, more sophisticated pop music, pop music more musically in the know. To describe the music he and Larkin love and vibe with, Boustead said, “Take things like straight-ahead jazz music and combine it with The Beatles and Steely Dan and Sting.”
Boustead emphasized that in writing songs with Larkin for Flashes, they worked toward “songs that you could hear on the radio, not just in the theater.” That is, Boustead explained, in developing Flashes he and Larkin worked in the space Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2015 musical Hamilton opened up: “Once Hamilton came out, all the rules went out the window, because you could use rap, you could use pop music, you could really stretch the colors that you use.”
Other recent musicals that have been influential for Larkin and Boustead include Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson’s Waitress, which premiered in 2015 and is based on the 2007 film of the same name written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. Another is Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown, which premiered in 2016. Like Flashes of Light, Hadestown draws on ancient Greek tradition, in this case the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
But Flashes of Light is its own thing, a new musical with engaging songs and a provocative story to tell, or that’s my impression. How will audiences respond? What about the critics?
If you go to Sierra Madre to catch the show and see a thunderhead above Mt. Wilson sporting a crown flash, maybe take that to be Athena signaling her approval.
Deets
- Flashes of Light
- Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre
- Schedule and tickets are available at the Sierra Madre Playhouse Web site or by calling the box office at (626) 355-4318
What an engaging and informative review! Thank you.
You are very welcome!