In 2012 the Lovewell Teen workshop in Fort Lauderdale, Florida wrote The Alternate: The Musical Tale of Nikola Tesla. This show follows the life of the famous inventor Nikola Tesla and the struggles he faced as a Serbian immigrant in the late nineteenth century. While the story focuses primarily on the politics of inventing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it also offers commentary on the lack of equality of immigrants in America. The Alternate provides insight into the life of the lower class in the booming age of industrialization; where they were offered a fresh start in the promise land but rarely obtained successful careers. The class struggle between the wealthy, powerful Americans and lower class proletariats is represented through the current war; during which Tesla and Edison battled for recognition of their work. Bankers like George Westinghouse and JP Morgan funded the inventors respectively and the current war became a battle of wealth rather than a fight for scientific progress. Edison’s electricity system, direct current (DC), was commonly used in factories because it was powerful and easy to produce. However, direct current was not as energy efficient and therefore earned electric companies more money. When Tesla came to America he had not yet perfected the use of alternating current (AC) power which would be cheaper and produce more energy, ultimately providing free electricity. While in America Telsa’s aim was to harness the power of alternating current and eventually, in 1887 he developed the induction motor which enabled him to control AC power. The Alternate is a musical that inspires questions about equality and class struggle in American society from the aspiring entrepreneur to the passionate artist to the innovative inventor.
Ella Pigg
The Alternate is the result of a collaborative, creative process using the LovewellMethod. During the summer of 2012, students and staff members from throughout the United States and Sweden gathered in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Not one word of this piece existed before that time. Every moment is student generated, every song from their imaginations and every message from their hearts.
If you would like to be part of the same process that created The Alternate, join the Lovewell workshop that will take place in the summer of 2015 at Short North Stage in Columbus, Ohio from June 8th-20th, 2015. More info at www.lovewell.org
