Kate Shindle, Michael Arden, et al. Set for Broadway-Bound NERDS, Reading Set for 6/21

The Broadway-bound musical Nerds, about computer giants Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and their Silicon Valley colleagues, is having an industry reading on Thursday, June 21 in New York City. Casey Hushion (Fat Camp, Asst. Director of In The Heights and The Drowsy Chaperone) is directing. Nadia DiGiallonardo (Hair) provides musical supervision.

Participating in the reading are: Michael Arden (The Times They Are A-Changin’, upcoming sitcom “Anger Management”) playing the role of Bill Gates, Charlie Pollock (Urinetown) is Steve Jobs, Heléne Yorke (Wicked) is Sally, Kate Shindle (Legally Blonde) is Myrtle, David Rossmer (Peter and the Starcatcher) plays Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Mark Price (Mary Poppins) plays Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The cast also includes Gabriel Ebert (4000 Miles), Tom Deckman (Spamalot) and Scott Barnhardt (Book of Mormon).

With book and lyrics by two-time Emmy Award nominees Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner (Off-Broadway's The Bomb-itty of Errors, TV's "Robot Chicken") and music by Hal Goldberg (The Children), Nerds — seen developmentally at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and in a production by Philadelphia Theatre Company — is an irreverent new musical comedy satirizing the parallel stories of computer pioneers Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as they blaze a path from humble garage inventors to warring titans of the computer revolution.

Full creative and casting for the musical will be announced in the coming weeks. The Broadway launch is expected to happen in 2013 following a limited engagement at the North Carolina Theatre in Raleigh on January 18 – February 3, 2013.

The show earned 2007 Philadelphia Barrymore Awards in the categories of Outstanding Original Music and Outstanding New Play.

The musical's story begins before the existence of e-mails and iPods, when two competing ideas are born that will change the world. Nerds, with a rock-infused original score, hilariously celebrates the rise of computer technology and the two pop-culture icons that made it possible. Before Gates and Jobs were billionaires, they were Nerds.

Photo Credit: Monica Simoes