Monday, April 15, 2019
How the Bill Gates-Steve Jobs Musical 'Nerds' Became a Debacle
Hollywood Reporter: On March 8, 2016, the cast of Nerds, a musical based on the lives of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, was working up a sweat inside an Eighth Avenue rehearsal studio. Previews at Broadway's Longacre Theatre were just two weeks away, and the ensemble was running through a big gospel number called "Think Different," a nod to the iconic Apple advertising slogan. They made it all the way to the song's rousing final lyric — "Liiiiiiive yoooour dream!" — when they noticed the creative team had left the room.
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5 comments:
Wow. I hope, from this, we figure out more ways to hold producers accountable. The law is enough that this individual will not be able to completely defraud these people, but there is still plenty of damage done to the people who were on the show and were suddenly out of a job. I wonder how no one could have known. That possibility is pretty scary to me. I guess that is the nature of Broadway show business, but it is not something I am interested in being a part of. That aside, I am sad that this show was never actually put on because it sounds pretty interesting. I hope that the playwright is able to mount this show elsewhere. It is really unfair that they came so close to having their work on stage. The same goes for the whole team who had the rug ripped from underneath them.
Maybe they should make a Broadway musical about the attempt at creating this Broadway musical. Might end up being too similar to the Producers though (not that this was the same thing, it is definitely a very different story). Still, I can’t imagine the disappointment of thinking you are going to be in the original cast of a new musical on Broadway and then suddenly it all gets pulled out from under you. I’m also surprised that they went as far as they did without having even close to the money they needed. It isn’t as if they had it all and then a major investor pulled out last minute, from my understanding of this article they were so far away from having them money they shouldn’t have even been thinking they’d do it all yet, let alone have a cast and be rehearsing and booking a venue as if it is really going to happen. I also wonder if this failed attempt has doomed the musical from ever being able to be produced on Broadway. I could see there being no one who wants to touch it given the history now associated with it.
I remember when this show was about to open and the plug was pulled on it. There had been all kinds of amazing advertisements and then all of a sudden an investor walked out it. I remember reading playbill.com articles about it and I was really interested to see why this show had come back in current articles. I am amazed to read how problematic the whole financials behind this show are. This article makes me wonder why there aren’t more safeguards in place or why the potential safe guards that were in place didn’t stop
Nerds from going into production? This kind of article confuses me more than I’ve ever thought about being a producer/investor on Broadway as it sounds like there was a lot of sneaking around. This seems like a really bad thing to do to make sure that someone has happy investors. The two big questions I am left with are where is the money going to come from after the lawsuits are settled and are Nerds cursed to never be produced in commercial theatre again?
This article makes me wonder how shows get paid for on Broadway. By this I mean what is the process for paying designers and unions and shops and venues for a production? How was this man able to get so far into the process without having the money for it? This article does not talk about the designers or the shops that were jipped in the strangely intriguing yet insane story of this production, but I cannot imagine a shop taking a bid without having at least some of the money first. The designers do not have a union with the same kind of power and standing as the actors in Actors’ Equity do. I guess being well known in the business does get you places and closes deals. It disgusts me that people can sweet talk their way into big time ideas and then hurt so many people. I agree with Kaylie: there definitely needs to be some sort of way to hold producers like this accountable, especially when he is still allowed to vote on awards for the Tonys.
The premise of this musical sounds very interesting, however, the execution sounds extremely lackluster, and terrible. In some ways I am sad that I will never see this musical, but in other ways, I am glad. This is a class of overpromising and under delivering, as well a poor management. To promise holograms and wide scale interactivity in the era in which it was proposed is a gross mistake, especially when we are only reliably reaching that technology right now. It is interesting to see that this show never even reached previews, and that is probably a good thing as well, as it would have led to a massive waste of audience’s time and money, as well as the same for investors. This reminds me of the musical the Prom, which did reach previews and even opened on broadway, if I remember correctly. However, it was something that I was able to witness the process of directly, as it began at the Alliance theatre in Atlanta.
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