Not Just For Gays Anymore: Musical Theater Nerds

A Musical Theater Nerd is not just a person who loves musicals; it’s a person who is obsessed with musical theater! A Nerd knows the names of practically every musical ever produced; knows not only the big name Broadway stars, but many of the ensemble members as well; they tend to perform musical theater numbers at karaoke night; and they may have a shrine or two in their homes dedicated to everything musical theater! A true Musical Theater Nerd knows all the best shows by heart including: Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Next to Normal, The Book of Mormon, Rent, etc. They have their favorite Broadway performers: Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Sutton Foster, Aaron Tveit, Kristin Chenoweth, Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli. Because of their familiarity with so many varieties of shows, the Musical Theater Nerd has a song that they can sing about any situation happening in their life. This website will be a musical playground for theater lovers and theater virgins alike and will hopefully create new Musical Theater Nerds. The site will be a digital curation based on new media theories by one Lev Manovich, a professor of Computer Science at City University of New York. Manovich’s theories are made up of five principles which are: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding and these ideas will be shown throughout the website. So, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of a Musical Theater Nerd. As Neil Patrick Harris sang in his opening number of the 2011 Tony Awards, “it’s not just for gays anymore!”