The Theater: New Musical on Broadway, may 25, 1959

The Nervous Set (book by Jay Landesman and Theodore J. Flicker; music by Tommy Wolf; lyrics by Fran Landesman) is a wry and indulgent spoof of the Beat Generation. The mood is mock-nihilistic. Instead of Waiting for Lefty, the hipsters of the '50s are waiting for Junkie (the dope peddler); in place of the prewar pacifism of Bury the Dead, the postwar passive-ists Dig the Bird (the late Saxophonist Charlie Parker). And, of course, boy meets girl.

Brad (Richard Hayes) is a Greenwich Village intellectual ("At least. I'm out of work"); Jan (Tani Seitz)...

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