(top row) Devyn Rush (Electra) (bottom row) Chima Rok (Mark Twain); Sydney Endicott (Mother + Female Chorus Member/Coverage); Steven Wishnoff (Professor Brown + J.P. Morgan); Lauren Lorati (Katharine Johnson); Guy Noland (Thomas Edison); Daniel Krause (Robert Johnson + Father + Lab Worker) Photo Credit: M Palma Photography
By any measure, telling the story of Nikola Tesla on stage is an ambitious task. In Flashes of Light, now playing at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, creators Billy Larkin and Ron Boustead, with direction by Jon Lawrence Rivera, take that ambition a step further—pairing Tesla’s real-life triumphs and torment with a mythic premise involving a meddling storm goddess and divine mandates.
The result is a flawed but ultimately redeeming new musical that dares to be big-hearted, even when its reach exceeds its grasp.
In this production, Tesla is not just the misunderstood genius who lit the world, but the unwitting pawn of the celestial order. The gods, led by Athena (Nina Kasuya) and her council, Prometheus (Patrick Munoz); and a bit-too fabulous Dionysus (Amir Levi), have decided it’s time for humanity to leap forward.
Their chosen instrument? A skinny boy in 19th-century Serbia, armed with visions, dreams, and a mind ablaze. Tasked with nudging him toward greatness is Electra (Devyn Rush), the goddess of storms, who descends to Earth to prod, provoke, and inevitably, fall into the very human trap of entanglement.
Of course she does.
It’s a conceit delivered with both earnestness and whimsy. Unfortunately, the early scenes don’t quite live up to the imaginative premise. (The audio was also bedeviling throughout the production as mic levels seemed to be a constant guessing game for the audio engineer.)
The opening numbers—despite the strong vocal efforts of a game cast—lack lyrical punch and melodic staying power. There’s a hokey call-and-response device used often with the chorus that unintentionally recalls the earnest amateurism of the cast in the 1997 film, Waiting for Guffman. One almost expects a character to burst out with “Red, White and Blaine.”
That said, the ensemble deserves credit for imbuing even the clunkiest tunes with conviction.
What ultimately rescues the score — and lifts the production — are the vocal performances of Thomas Winter as Tesla, and Rush as Electra. Winter’s bright, clarion tenor, in particular, injects passion and poignancy into each of his tunes. When the musical gives them both room to soar, particularly in the second act, the effect is stirring.
Winter’s performance captures both the wonder and isolation of Tesla, a man driven by visions and alienated by his own brilliance.
The script smartly avoids turning Tesla into a tech evangelist or misunderstood martyr. Instead, it offers a portrait of an emotionally complicated man shaped by early traumas, professional betrayals, and the impossible weight of his dreams. That portrait is made richer by the presence of Electra, played with mysterious magnetism and simmering restlessness. Her otherworldly presence initially feels like a fantasy crutch, but by the end becomes something more bittersweet — a metaphor for inspiration: powerful, unpredictable, and never truly ours to keep.
The staging, under Rivera’s direction, is modest but effective. The production leans into suggestion rather than spectacle — some bolts of light, some flares of static, and stormy shadows evoke a world on the cusp of transformation.
Like a number of other local theaters, the production depends on dual casting, to dubious effect—casting an African-American actor (Chima Rok) as Mark Twain, and then seeing him at other times in the chorus, is simply jarring.
It doesn’t really break any barriers; if anything, it breaks the narrative.
It’s worth noting, too, that this play arrives in a peculiar cultural moment. Tesla’s name, unfortunately, has been co-opted in recent years by the second-most disliked figure in the current administration. That context adds an unfortunate unspoken thud to Flashes of Light, which strives to reclaim Tesla’s good name.
What it offers instead is a gentler vision: Tesla as dreamer, as vessel, as a flawed human touched by something divine.
Flashes of Light may not be a perfect show. Its songs are uneven, and its odd mythic framing may not be to all tastes. But it is also generous, curious, and full of affection for its subject.
It stumbles, but it also shines.
‘Flashes of Light’ is at the Sierra Madre Playhouse through June 9. sierramadreplayhouse.org.
