Nerds is a live musical comedy. I’d say it was somewhere between awesome and really awesome.

Act One roughly follows a similar track as the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley although with less attention paid to historical accuracy. It’s a comedy, not a biography, but it gets a lot right. Various video screens showing era correct screenshots and logos were a nice touch. Act Two covers events up to today, but without even the pretension of accuracy. (The original script was apparently from 2007; it’s been updated to include the iPhone and death of Steve Jobs.)

Favorite part was probably the unveiling of Windows. Previously, Gates and Allen had tried to introduce DOS with a rap song but with bungled rhymes; e.g., “MS-DOS is lots of fun; we made it for every...body“). Then Jobs and Wozniak introduce the Mac (complete with the 1984 commercial showing on screen, but on stage is Wozniak in a crop top throwing the hammer). Finally, Gates steals all of Jobs’s cool ideas, leading to Windows 95. Gates and Allen run out on stage and launch into a Beastie Boys style number with tons of style.

Least favorite parts were probably the love interests for Gates and Jobs. It felt rather forced, especially the sex crazed band geek style stereotype chasing Gates around. Does every musical need the main character to have a love interest, just because it’s a musical? Allen and Wozniak both stuck around far longer than in real life, but that’s forgivable in the interest of plot streamlining. The love stories, on the other hand, were an unnecessary and awkward complication.