I am excited about joining Edison Nation and this blog to learn more about inventing and to improve my favorite inventions—plays and programs portraying Thomas Edison.

I hope to share with you here some of the things I have learned over the years from studying and portraying America’s greatest inventor and visionary. But first, a little background about how this came about.

Over the last several years of portraying Thomas Edison in plays and presentations, I have been asked on occasion why I began my one-man play and how I happened to chose Edison over so many other available and fascinating characters. Many of these inquiring minds have known me only as a businessman and entrepreneur, so these inquiries have often come with a somewhat puzzled and perplexed gaze.

Edison was my choice for many reasons, but chief among them is that he has been my life-long hero. I have held him in such high esteem probably because of his nearly supernatural accomplishments in spite of such an ordinary and rather limited cultural and educational background. As to relating to the brilliant technical genius of Edison, I have found no similarity or credential to even touch the hem of his lab coat.

The historian, Thomas Hughes writes; “Only Leonardo da Vinci evokes the inventive spirit as impressively. But, unlike Edison, Leonardo actually constructed only a few of his brilliant conceptions.” Another historian, Ruth Cowan writes; “Edison from the beginning wanted to build a technological system and a series of businesses to manage that system. By the time he applied for any patent, Edison had already envisaged how he could translate the invention into a tangible, commercial product; indeed, he would not begin the research otherwise. Still, he was a classic innovator.”

I have personally authored and co-authored three plays and one program/keynote, “Edison…Man of the Millennium”; “I’ll Light Manhattan!”; “The Edison Perspective” and “Thomas Edison Invents!”

The first is a two act play about the life of Edison from ‘birth to bulb’. The second, the incredible story of what took place in taking electricity to the world. The third, is a program done in character highlighting the entrepreneurial side of Edison. The fourth is “Thomas Edison Invents!” This I co-authored with Mark Brotherton, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida Conservatory Theatre. It had it’s world premier October 2006 at the Orlando Repertory Theatre where several thousand students from public and private schools attended this show which was written and produced with a younger audience in mind.

If you haven’t already done so, let me encourage you to investigate this great man for yourself I know of no greater authority than ‘The Edison Papers’. This is a work primarily of Rutgers University and directed by Dr. Paul Israel. See: http://edison.rutgers.edu/

My website: http://www.attwoodasedison.com
Blog: http://www.pleasemayibefrank.blogspot.com
email: info@attwoodasedison.com

In my next posting, I will give you a bit more background from an excerpt out of a recent playbill.

Remember, "There’s always a way to do it better…find it! Thomas A. Edison.