Learn More About Frank Attwood

I have personally authored two plays: “Edison: Man of the Millennium” and “I’ll Light Manhattan.” The first is a two-act play for general audiences, and the second is a presentation illuminating the entrepreneurial side of Edison.

“Thomas Edison Invents” is another play I have recently written with Mark Brotherton, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida. It had its world premiere last October at the Orlando Repertory Theater. Several thousand students from public and private schools all over Central Florida were reached by this show, which was written and produced with a younger audience in mind.

If you desire to investigate this great man for yourself, I would like to direct you to the “Edison Papers,” which is a work of Rutgers University. I know of no greater authority on Edison, as they have been archiving over five million pages of documents found during Edison’s life of invention.

Come And See The Mind of a Genius

Some of the Principles Taught Within the Plays Are:

  • The value of hard work and study
  • The importance of 'Hard Thinking'
  • Persistence in the midst of failure
  • Seeing problems in a different way
  • Developing a curious mind
  • Not following the crowd
  • Having fun with what you do

These are all principles that every person can use throughout their lives.

Why did Frank choose Thomas Edison?

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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 choose Edison over so many other available and fascinating characters. Knowing me only as a businessman, these inquiries often come with a somewhat puzzled and perplexed gaze.

With my entrepreneurial background, I have never been very content just waiting for my agent to call me with a role or an audition. I am too proactive to only depend on somebody else to dig out and create opportunities for me. However, most of my acting career has been just that. Not to say it hasn't been a positive experience; quite the contrary.

Edison was my choice for many reasons, but chief among them is that he has been my lifelong 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.”