Rock Musical 'Passing Strange' Finally Reaches L.A. — 18 Years Late

Tony Award-winning rock musical "Passing Strange" will finally receive its Los Angeles production at the Pasadena Playhouse, nearly two decades after its 2007 Broadway run — directed by Zhailon Levingston, who won this year's Tony for best direction of a musical for "Cats: The Jellicle Ball."

The show, created by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, won major awards at the Tonys, the Drama Desk Awards and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards after opening on Broadway in 2007. It has since been staged across Europe and South America. Los Angeles remained the conspicuous exception.

Stew told Variety: "'Passing Strange' has been done in almost every major city except L.A. It's been done in South America; it's been done in Europe — so, yeah, it was starting to stick out in a kind of a weird way."

Why the delay?

Stew and Rodewald were prominent figures on the Los Angeles music scene as members of the band the Negro Problem before relocating to New York around 2000. But no hometown staging materialized — and, Stew said, that did not shock them.

"We've always had an adversarial relationship with both Los Angeles and to the L.A. press, particularly the L.A. Times," Stew said. "So we were sort of not surprised at all, but other people would always come to us and go, 'What's up? The play won a Tony! Why aren't you guys in your hometown?'"

The change came when Levingston met with Pasadena Playhouse leadership. Giving "Passing Strange" its proper SoCal premiere topped his list of projects.

Who is in the cast?

Stew and Rodewald will not perform in Pasadena, as they did throughout the Broadway and pre-Broadway runs. Colman Domingo, who had a pre-fame supporting role on Broadway, is also absent; Spike Lee's film version preserves those original performances.

This production stars:

• Ty Taylor, singer of Vintage Trouble, as the Narrator
• Brittany Campbell
• Britton Smith
• Saycon Sengbloh

Stew said Levingston invited the creators to peek in on rehearsals, but declined to intervene: "First he knows the play better than we do. Secondly, if you've ever seen his work... he's honestly the last person I would give any advice to."

Rodewald added: "The way he talks about 'Passing Strange' just makes us think: Whatever you're going to do, you get it."

What does the show change for Broadway?

The pair are blunt about the musical's influence — and its limits. Stew said two things changed immediately after their run: every show wanted a live band on stage, and their unconventional lighting design — built from lights "rejected from, like, seven shows" and resembling "Liza With a Z" — was widely copied.

But he is skeptical of deeper impact. "I still think musicals are pretty un-rocking and kind of shallow," Stew said. "And when they say 'rock musical,' that just means there's gonna be a scene where you hear a fuzzy guitar turned up."

Rodewald noted the scale the show brought them: "We then do this show where it's 1,200 people, eight shows a week... everywhere we go, they're like, 'Oh my God, I saw you on Broadway.'"

From clubs to Broadway — reluctantly

The show began as "Travelogue," a cabaret-style piece performed at Joe's Pub and other New York clubs. The Public Theater approached them about turning it into theater. "We said no three times, and then finally said yes," Stew said.

Broadway was never the goal, Rodewald insisted: "We weren't trying to please people. We were just pleasing ourselves... We didn't have to go to Broadway; we could have been one of those cool shows that goes on and on forever, off-Broadway."

The pair contrasted theater's support with the record industry's decline. Stew recalled taking $10,000 from an office meeting with Lenny Waronker — and spending it on their own record instead of label demos. "Technically our second record is a DreamWorks project, but they don't know it," he said.

In L.A., the band sold out Spaceland on Saturday nights but hit a glass ceiling. "Suddenly in New York we had a career and could make a living," Stew said.

What comes next

Both are prolific. Upcoming projects include:

• A new Negro Problem record in 2027
• A Rodewald show about Aileen Wuornos
• Stewdio Zero, a new show every four months with former students, performed at Jack in New York
• A film of "High Substitute for the Head Lecturer," about Amiri Baraka and Allen Ginsberg
• A "Broadway-bound" project on Muhammad Ali and Thelonious Monk
• A funded song cycle about Detroit activists Grace Lee Boggs and Jimmy Boggs

Stew, 65, teaches both theater and music at Harvard, in a class titled "Singer Plus Song Equals Story."

The Pasadena production, Stew said, is worth the decades-long wait: "this amazing director is doing it in L.A., so who cares about time?"