Producer of canceled Steve Jobs musical faces $6 million lawsuit

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walt-mossberg-steve-jobs
Musical would have told the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates' rivalry.
Photo: Joi Ito/Flickr CC

An abandoned 2016 musical about the rivalry between Steve Jobs and frenemy Bill Gates has resulted in the producer being sued for $6 million.

The musical’s producer allegedly told investors he had funding from Microsoft for the project. In fact, the musical was $1 million in debt at the time. It was ultimately canceled just two weeks before it was due to open.

Dubbed the “Fyre Festival of Broadway,” the Nerds musical was considered by its backers to be the next The Book of Mormon. It enjoyed a successful run with The Philadelphia Theater Company.

However, producer Carl Levin foresaw bigger things and attracted investors based on his big promises. This included “onstage holograms” and “app integrations that allow users to interact with the set.” Levin reportedly hit up multiple potential investors for the play.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, he even arranged “a performance at Apple’s Cupertino campus, figuring that since the play was about the tech industry he might find investors in Silicon Valley. [One of the cast] remembers going ‘to San Francisco and singing about Segways,’ but in the end no money ended up being raised at the tech giant.”

Nerds was canceled on March 8, 2016. This was only a fortnight before its first public performances were scheduled to begin. Now Levin faces a lawsuit filed by 13 different investors. The complaint against him says he left a “trail of disappointment, anger and unpaid vendors” in his wake. The Hollywood Reporter describes the abortive effort as “one of the greatest tire fires in Broadway history.”

Other Steve Jobs musicals

Fortunately, not all Steve Jobs-related theater productions have been quite so disastrous. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs bagged the Grammy for best opera recording earlier this year.

You can listen to The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs on music streaming platforms, including Apple Music.

Via: Daily Mail

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