Musical Play: “It’s Electrifying”

The Show

We want you to know what you're getting, so the cast list and first third of the script are available here! Bad Wolf shows are written for flexibility and can be edited however you like to meet the needs of your actors, school, curriculum, parents, astrological chart, latest whim, etc. If you have questions about the portions of the script not shown, please contact us.

Casting

Flexible casting from 11-40 students. Use as many Electrons, Capacitors, Televisions, etc. as desired. Actors can easily play several roles, or a single role can be divided between multiple actors. All parts can be played by any gender.

CHARACTERS:

Narrators (at least three)
Ben Franklin
Student Soloist
Cynthia
Thales
Electrons
Capacitors
Volta Fan Club
Leader of Club
Electromagnets
Televisions
Sun
Bankers
and a CHORUS comprised of all students who are not playing roles on stage at the time

Script

This is the first one-third of the script.

(There is a string attached to a kite (or a picture of kite) on the backdrop. The CLASS is on stage. The NARRATORS step out, approach and address the audience.)

NARRATOR #1: Welcome to our story about electricity. We’re very excited about it.

NARRATOR #2: To get us started, we’ve invited Benjamin Franklin to re-enact his famous kite and lightning experiment.

NARRATOR #3: There’s all kinds of things about that story I’ve always wondered about. Like—why did he need all that electricity in the first place?

(BENJAMIN FRANKLIN enters with an electric guitar strapped around his neck. He walks across the stage, picks up the end of the string from the kite and plugs it into his guitar. He faces the audience, plays big chord, and the CLASS sings. He continues to play guitar throughout the song.)

Song 1

CLASS:
We’re feeling acrobatic
We’re waxing operatic
Just learning ’bout the static
Charges from our comb

We’re charged up we’re not lying
Our circuits keep on frying
Yeah it’s electrifying
We love our ohm sweet ohm.

Amps and joules
Watts and volts
Sparks and arcs
And lots of jolts.
It’s electrifying
It’s electrifying
It’s electrifying
Woh-oh-oh-oh.

(The following lines are chanted by one student, although different individual students may chant each line)

STUDENT:
It's true we love to shuffle both our feet across the rug
And then we give our brother such a nice big hug.
To do good science someone usually has to take his lumps
It's absolutely shocking just how high he jumps.

CLASS:
We got some great instruction
We’re current on conduction
And how ’lectric production
Affects us in our home

We’re charged up we’re not lying
Our circuits keep on frying
Yeah it’s electrifying
We love our ohm sweet ohm.

Amps and joules
Watts and volts
Sparks and arcs
And lots of jolts.
It’s electrifying
It’s electrifying
It’s electrifying
Woh-oh-oh-oh.

(FRANKLIN exits.)

NARRATOR #1: To be honest, that never really happened.

NARRATOR #3: You mean Ben Franklin didn’t play electric guitar?

NARRATOR #1: No, he didn’t.

NARRATOR #3: Electric keyboard?

NARRATOR #1: No.

NARRATOR #3: Drums?

NARRATOR #1: NO!

NARRATOR #2: But he did do really important experiments with electricity, and he did use the kite to show that lightning is a form of electricity.

NARRATOR #3: (pointing to audience)
So we’ve lied to these people already?

NARRATOR #1: It’s not lying. In the theater we call it “dramatic license.”

NARRATOR #3: The theater? I thought we worked in a power plant.

NARRATOR #2: We DO. But we’re always being asked about electricity, so we put together this little musical to inform the public.

NARRATOR #3: Oh. So these people aren’t actually in our power plant.

NARRATOR #1: No. They’re the audience.

NARRATOR #3: The audience? You mean they paid to see us put on this show?

NARRATOR #2: Actually, they got in free.

NARRATOR #3: Free! Well, come on, let’s give them their money’s worth. What happens next?

NARRATOR #1: Let’s watch a demonstration of how the existence of electricity was first discovered. Way back in ancient Greece.

(CYNTHIA and THALES enter. CYNTHIA holds a rock and a piece of cloth. )

NARRATOR #3: Wow! Are those guys really from ancient Greece?
(NARRATORS # 1 and #2 give #3 a dirty look)
Oh yeah, right. Dramatic license.

CYNTHIA: Hey Thales, check this out.

THALES: What is it, Cynthia?

CYNTHIA: If you rub this piece of amber with a piece of wool, it can pick up stuff.

THALES: Like what?

CYNTHIA: Like feathers and little sticks and fuzz balls.

THALES: That’s fantastic.

CYNTHIA: Isn’t it? It’s my latest discovery. I call it…the vacuum cleaner.

THALES: Can I try?

CYNTHIA: Sure.

(THALES rubs it. Suddenly jumps back.)

THALES: Did you see that?

CYNTHIA: What?

THALES: It gave off a little flash of light.

CYNTHIA: Really? Let me see.

THALES: No. I want to rub it some more.

CYNTHIA: It’s MY rock. Give it to me.

THALES: But I LOVE this rock.

CYNTHIA: NOW!

THALES: Okay, okay.

CYNTHIA (rubbing the rock, then): Wow, it’s does give off a spark!

Song 2

THALES and CYNTHIA:
There is a spark
There’s a spark in the dark
There’s a spark in the dark when I rub this amber

And if I buff
If I buff it enough
If I buff it enough I can make it pop.

There is a spark in the dark
There is a spark in the dark

Why it is so
Why it’s so I don’t know
Why it’s so I don’t know but I can’t I can’t seem to stop.

It’s thrilling and it’s frightening
Making my own lightning
It glimmers and it crackles
Tickling my hackles
I have great powers
I’ve been doing this for hours!

There is a spark
There’s a spark in the dark
here’s a spark in the dark when I rub this amber

And if I buff
If I buff it enough
If I buff it enough I can make it pop.

There is a spark in the dark
There is a spark in the dark

Why it is so
Why it’s so I don’t know
Why it’s so I don’t know but I can’t I can’t seem to stop.

(THEY exit)

NARRATOR #3: So they didn’t know about electrons in ancient Greece?

NARRATOR #2: No.

NARRATOR #3: Then how did they make their TVs?

NARRATOR #1: They didn’t have TVs!

NARRATOR #3: No TVs!? You mean no _____? No _____?
No ______? [Fill in blanks with the name of favorite TV shows, preferably silly ones.]

NARRATOR #1: No.

NARRATOR #3 (in disgust): And they call themselves the cradle of Western civilization.

NARRATOR #2: The Greek word for amber is “electron,” so around 1600 when it came time to name the force that made things stick to objects like amber, they called it “electricity.”

NARRATOR #1: In the seventeenth century some really smart folks figured out that this mysterious thing called electricity moved, that it could really zip through certain materials.

(3 ELECTRONS run onto stage and all around, buzzing and zipping.)

NARRATOR #2: And here they are!

NARRATOR #3: Who?

ALL THREE ELECTRONS (stop running around and shout): We’re electrons!

ELECTRON #1: Put us in a good conductor and us mobile, “free” electrons can race along as electric current.

ALL THREE ELECTRONS: Free the electrons! Free the electrons!

ELECTRON #2: But if we’re in an insulator, there’s too much resistance and the electric current can’t flow.

ALL THREE ELECTRONS (with thumbs down): Resist the resistance! Resist the resistance!

ELECTRON #3: It’s all about conduction!

Song 3

ELECTRONS:
I like to move
Get down and groove
Go with the flow and have fun
I like to move
Get down and groove
Find a conductor and run.

I love good conductors
Like silver’s mighty fine
Give me something copper
And I’ll dance down the line.
I can zip through water
I will never tire
Iron can resist me
Yeah I’m a real live wire.

I like to move
Get down and groove
Go with the flow and have fun
I like to move
Get down and groove
Find a conductor and run.

I hate insulators
They try to box me in
Leather and ceramic
Won’t let me take a spin.

Porcelain and rubber
Feathers hair and glass
They put me in neutral
When I want to hit the gas.

I like to move
Get down and groove
Go with the flow and have fun
I like to move
Get down and groove
Find a conductor and run.

(THEY exit)

NARRATOR #1: Of course, it was a long time before people knew anything about electrons.

NARRATOR #2: But by the eighteenth century they had discovered all sorts of ways of rubbing and spinning things to make an electric charge. Now they needed a way to store an electric charge.

NARRATOR #3: That’s easy! I always keep an extra electric charge in my pants.

NARRATOR #1: You do not.

NARRATOR #3: Yes I do.

NARRATOR #2: No one can store electricity in his pants.

NARRATOR #3: Yes they can. Just a minute, let me look.
(She/he searches through pockets, and eventually finds a jar.)
See, here it is.

NARRATOR #1: And you have an electric charge in there?

NARRATOR #3: A big one. A giant one. Huge, even.

NARRATOR #2: Let me see that.
(She/he takes can. Opening it carefully, some of those springy snakes bounce out. NARRATOR #2 jumps in fright.)
That’s not funny. And it’s not electricity.

NARRATOR #3: Oh no? Then how come it gave you a shock?
(to audience)
I love that one. I got a million of them.
(hands out business card to audience members)
Here’s my card. I do birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs.

NARRATOR #1: Enough of that! What we’re talking about here are capacitors or condensers. Things that keep an electric charge stored up and then release it when you want it.
(shouts to side)
Bring in the capacitors!

(CAPACITORS enter)

CAPACITOR #1: Here we are! And look how far we’ve come from the Leyden jar of the eighteenth century.

CAPACITOR #2: You bet. We’re sleek, smooth, and everywhere now, from washing machines to computers.

CAPACITOR #1: Oh yeah, baby, we’re charge-a-licious!

Song 4

CAPACITOR #1:
I’m a capacitor
I snatch and catch the juice
Oh whoa, oh whoa
And I will not let it loose.

CAPACITOR #2:
I’m a capacitor
And though I’m not so large
Oh whoa, oh whoa
And I can take a charge.

CAPACITORS:
Ben Franklin was quite odd
With his lightening rod
Set up to catch the lightening all around
But when he caught a bolt
He didn’t save one volt
But let it all escape into the ground.

(Spoken: Such a waste!)

We’re a capacitor
We’re ev’rywhere you are
In your appliances
And riding in your car.

We’re storing energy
Yeah that’s our claim to fame
Oh whoa, oh whoa
And farads are our game.

We really have come far
From that Leyden jar
That folks once used to store ’lectricity
Now in this modern age
Condensers are the rage
And there is nothing I would rather be.

(Spoken: Our mothers are so proud!)

I’m a capacitor
I snatch and catch the juice
Oh whoa, oh whoa
And I will not let it loose.

I’m a capacitor
And though I’m not so large
Oh whoa, oh whoa
And I can take a charge.

(THEY exit. VOLTA’s FAN CLUB enters.)

LEADER: Gather ’round, gather ’round. Welcome to the annual meeting of the Alessandro Volta fan club.

ALL: Volta, Volta, I’m your fan...Galvani isn’t half the man.

LEADER: Okay, settle down. It’s time for the reading of the scroll.
(Someone hands him a bowl.)
What’s this?

FAN CLUB MEMBER: It’s the bowl.

LEADER: Not the BOWL. The SCROLL! Where’s the scroll?

(Another FAN CLUB MEMBER hands the leader a scroll, which she/he unrolls and reads from it in a serious voice, one filled increasingly with emotion.)

FAN CLUB MEMBER: Let us now recall the dark days, the bleak days before 1800,the dim days when there was no way to produce a constant electric current.

MEMBERS: Whoa, whoa to the dark days.

FAN CLUB MEMBER: Then there came a man who put two different metal plates in salty water and lo, there was a mighty change. A powerful change. A chemical change!

MEMBERS: It was magic!

FAN CLUB MEMBER:(stops reading): Not magic, my friends, but anodes, cathodes, and electrolytes.

MEMBERS: It was magic!

LEADER: Close enough.
(continues reading)
From this chemistry he brought to us the cherished electric cell. And cell to cell did our brave Volta connect, cell upon cell did he heap. Until, at last, he produced the original…the unprecedented…the wonder of the first practical battery, called the Voltaic Pile.

MEMBERS: Hail the Voltaic Pile!

LEADER:. And so, my fellow Voltarians, as folk tales the world over now relate, the modern unit of electric potential was named after our beloved Volta.

MEMBERS: Volta! Volta! Volta!

LEADER: Now, sing with me.

Song 5

MEMBERS:
Who made the first electric cell?
Who made the current flow?
Who made the first real battery
Two hundred years ago?

Who worked with copper, lead, and tin?
Who figured out a way
To father all our batteries
From D to triple A?

Alessandro Volta

CLASS:
Volta, Volta, Volta!

MEMBERS:
He was sure no dolta

CLASS:
Dolta, dolta, dolta!

MEMBERS:
He made elect current run much faster than a colta
Alessandro Volta
He was sure no dolta
Next time you touch a battery and get a little jolta
Thank Alessandro Volta.

Whoever had his brilliant mind?
Whoever had his style?
Who wouldn’t give his foot to be
A nice Voltaic pile?

Who worked with copper, lead, and tin?
Who figured out a way
To father all our batteries
From D to triple A?

Alessandro Volta

CLASS:
Volta, Volta, Volta!

MEMBERS:
He was sure no dolta

CLASS:
Dolta, dolta, dolta!

MEMBERS:
He made elect current run much faster than a colta
Alessandro Volta
He was sure no dolta
Next time you touch a battery and get a little jolta
Thank Alessandro Volta.

(THEY exit)

(This concludes the first one-third of the script.)