It's Electric! A conversation with the creators of Brelby Theatre Company's new musical POWERHOUSE: THE TESLA MUSICAL

Melody Chrispen and Danny Hernandez in Powerhouse: The Tesla Musical 
photo by Shelby Maticic

by Haddi Meyer

Brelby Theater’s newest, original production, Powerhouse: The Tesla Musical opens this Friday, and follows the life of the quirky, kind and brilliant Nikola Tesla. There are many facets of Tesla’s life and story that are incredible, from the hundreds of patents he registered, to his endless generosity, and famous cohorts, but Brian Maticic, one of the co-writers and lyricists for Powerhouse says that it’s more than just his accomplishments that make him worthy of his own musical.

Brian Maticic

“His life is just really, really interesting. The visions he had for the future, the sheer number of inventions that he created that are relevant to our life today, a hundred years later, it’s just mind boggling how far ahead of his time he was. But, he also was just incredibly eccentric. As a character, independent of his own accomplishments, he, as a human being was just so very unique and his philosophies on life, his idiosyncrasies, the way he lived his life, there is a lot there to play with, before even going into his impact on the world. Everything about him is worth exploring.”

As for the musicals name, fellow co-writer and lyricist John Perovich laughed as he described Tesla as “a rockstar. He seems like a powerhouse in terms of his fierce passion for what he’s doing, and his relentlessness even in the face of really tough obstacles. Some of them, most of them self imposed, like any rockstar who sort of sabotages their own life. They’re all kind of like Tesla.”

Many other famous figures follow the current in and out of Powerhouse: The Tesla Musical, but Tesla’s rival in life and in science, Thomas Edison appears in all of his animal electrocuting and, as Perovich described him, “straight-up capitalist businessman” glory.

“It’s not that he was a bad guy,” Maticic said, “but he created a really organic, natural antithesis, or villain-type character who is a very nice counterbalance to Tesla, who was very philanthropic with his developments. At many points in his life he signed away his rights to incredible fortunes for the benefit of the people.”

John Perovich

In regards to choosing Tesla as the focus of their show instead of Edison, Perovich added, “We wanted to tell the story of the guy that’s the underdog, who is pushing and fighting rather than Edison who was kind of the oppressor of the science world.”

This is the first time that Perovich and Maticic have written a musical, but they told me they didn’t have to look far to find inspiration.

“My inspiration, honestly, was his life,” Perovich said.

“His life was rich enough,” Maticic agreed, “What he accomplished was inspirational in it’s own right. It made us want to learn more and want to tell this story.”

However, for the structure of the show, Perovich pointed to one recent pop culture phenomenon that any theatre fan would know.

“I was thinking a lot about Hamilton.”

CJ O'Hara

Composer CJ O’Hara said he drew inspiration from many outside sources including his “compositional heroes” like Alan Menken, Stephen Sondheim, and “a lot of Billy Joel and Elton John...”

“As my fiance says, I grew up in the 90’s. A lot of [the music] is 80’s, 90’s rock and roll,” he said of the shows music, “you know, it’s a lot of just bang those drums, and bring out those really wonderful vocals.”

O’Hara described the show’s styling as “more of a rock and roll musical but it’s got jazz in it, it’s got a little bit of R&B, it’s got some hard rock in it. There is a lot of rock and roll involved but it’s a variety of styles from the rock genre with some jazz thrown in.”

The show is full of big ballads and has a big cast of characters to support them. Perovich and Maticic listed seven large roles, and several smaller supporting roles, many of whom are names that we still recognize today. The big names in the show aren’t limited to just Tesla and Edison. JP Morgan, Westinghouse, Mark Twain are just a few of the household names who make an appearance in the show.

O’Hara stated that he didn’t have much of an issue keeping them all musically different from each other. As for the titular character and his rival, you won’t find many similarities between the songs sung by Edison and Tesla either.

“Edison is very cool and grandiose and very arrogant. I used a 'Hit The Road Jack' style for his song, that’s Ray Charles’ style of 'yeah, I’m right here and we’re going to have some fun' and that’s what I wanted to portray for Edison’s songs. Tesla is rock, but it’s intelligent rock. The melody is purposely put together in certain ways to highlight his intelligence yet the simplicity of the ideas that he tries to get across. The chord structure behind it is more complex rock and roll. Think more Journey as opposed to like, Cheap Trick.”

O’Hara said that his main goal was to exemplify the differences in the two men through his music.

The composer said he “wanted to bring forth the idea that Tesla is ahead of his time, so his music is a little ahead of his time, rather that Edison's is more grandiose and braggadocious, more like cool jazz.”

The few musical numbers I was able to over hear during the interview were certainly catchy and entertaining, and O’Hara told me that he was hoping that the audience would go home with a few “earworms stuck in their head.” I certainly left humming the tune I heard.

O’Hara, Perovich and Maticic all raved about the creative process for this show, gushing about how wonderful and fun it was to produce a show they all told me they were proud of. Maticic described the show as “a sweeping story that goes through personal tragedy, huge personal and societal successes,” and Perovich added that the “the audience can expect to be surprised” by Tesla’s life.

O’Hara, however, had only one wish for the shows future patrons.

“I hope everyone has as much fun and learns as much as we did watching this show, as we had fun writing this show.”

CLICK HERE for more information on this production, which runs October 5th to October 27th