Joshua Bergasse Gets "Nerd"-y with His Latest Broadway Project
Joshua Bergasse (in black) has been tasked with making moves for techies in Broadway’s Nerds. Here, he rehearses dancers for On the Town. Photo by Jenny Anderson, Courtesy On the Town.
From The Book of Mormon‘s tapping evangelists to American Psycho‘s dryly comic serial killer, it seems there’s no topic too obscure for Broadway. Starting March 31, the Great White Way will present a battle of two of America’s most popular computer geeks: Microsoft pioneer Bill Gates and the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Aptly titled Nerds, according to an article from Rolling Stone, the show will extend beyond musical theater’s normal song-and-dance to include holograms and projection mapping, not to mention an interactive app that audience members will use during the show to help choose its ending.
While it’s hard to tell exactly how dancing will fit into the mix (could there be an ensemble of silhouetted dancers rocking out to their iPods amidst brightly-colored backgrounds?), one thing is very promising. Joshua Bergasse, whose moves for On the Town were nominated for a Tony, is Nerds‘ choreographer.
The show’s website is currently labeling it as “the Bill vs. Steve musical dot comedy,” and it already picked up awards during its 2005 regional run in Philly. It was written by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner, the team behind Cartoon Network’s comic series “Robot Chicken.” Casey Hushion, who was assistant director for In the Heights, is on board as director.
Casting has yet to be announced, but let’s just say this show sounds kooky enough to have me intrigued.
