“Nerds, part of the New York Musical Theater Festival, is noticeably a work in progress, though, with as many dud jokes as inspired moments. Mr. Goldberg's score lovingly invokes vintage sounds, but the lyrics are a mixed bag of semi-ironic sincerity and computer puns. In that spirit, consider this Nerds a promising if buggy Version 1.0 and look forward to the upgrade.”
Broad Street Review, Feb 3, 2007
The lyrics and dialogue rely heavily on predictable double-entendres equating computer functions with sex (I’m going to hack into your system and get some anti-virus software) or just plain sophomoric word play (I’d be happy to give you a hand, Jobs). Boil this material down to ten minutes and you have a cute skit for Saturday Night Live. Stretch it out to two hours, as Nerds does, and you have torture worthy of Abu Ghraib… self-congratulatory, repetitive and pointless.”
Talkin’ Broadway Philadelphia, Feb 2007
“Nerds is a musical that purports to tell the story of how the computer business has developed over the past thirty years, but its tone is so irreverent that it practically winks at the audience for two hours as if to say "don't take this seriously." Unfortunately, that means this show is sometimes a little too slight for its own good; it works at one cute level, but never tries to go much further… I began wondering if all the songs would be about the same subject; as it turned out, I was half right - more than fifty percent of the songs are about the trials and tribulations of nerd-dom. And after the show makes its initial points, it doesn't really have much to say. All this show is concerned about is making jokes, no matter how smug and condescending those jokes might be.”
Philadelphia City Paper, Dec 12 2013
“It’s a great premise for a musical, and there’s a lot to like, not least the bubbling energy and enthusiasm. The music is not always memorable, and the jokes are unreliable — the hit-to-miss ratio is roughly two to one... Instead of evoking young-adult brainiacs, the actors seem to be playing arch versions of children — more than once, I was reminded of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown."
the guy who werote the music for this show is an executive at Jujamcyn. is the longacre a Jujamcyn theater? if so, then that's how they got it. even with such a terrible show like this.