The Musical Theatre Podcast

(and not just the ones about white people)

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Passing Strange

The Musical Theatre Podcast (and not just the ones about white people) Episode 1 on the musical "Passing Strange"

Listen to our first episode when we take a closer look at the musical “Passing Strange,” by Stew and Heidi Rodewald. Passing Strange follows a young man, youth, on his journey out of his religious childhood in LA to Europe where he discovers who he is personally and artistically.

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Works Cited

Clancy, Elizabeth Hope. “Passing Strange.” Elizabeth Hope Clancy, 2017, elizabethhopeclancy.com/passing-strange.

“Exit Music.” The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, by Warren Hoffman, Rutgers University Press, NEW BRUNSWICK; NEW JERSEY; LONDON, 2014, pp. 203–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjxk2.11. Accessed 29 Nov. 2020.

Jones, Rebecca Naomi, and Stew. “Passing Strange by Stew (USA).” Genius, genius.com/albums/Stew-usa/Passing-strange.

Miller, Scott. "Inside Passing Strange By Scott Miller". Newlinetheatre.Com, 2011, http://www.newlinetheatre.com/strangechapter.html.

"Passing Strange." American Theatre, vol. 24, no. 4, 2007, pp. 34-35. ProQuest, https://lib-proxy01.skidmore.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.lib-proxy01.skidmore.edu/docview/220580541?accountid=13894.

Passing Strange Broadway Rehearsal & Interviews. 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59elobUaepI. Accessed 6 Dec 2020.

Playbill. “Passing Strange Broadway @ Belasco Theatre - Tickets and Discounts.” Playbill, Playbill INC, 2008, www.playbill.com/production/passing-strange-belasco-theatre-vault-0000010750.

Simpson, Janice. "Pivotal Moments In Broadway's Black History | Playbill". Playbill, 2015, https://www.playbill.com/article/pivotal-moments-in-broadways-black-history-com-342101.  

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Playbill 

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Photos: Carol Rosegg

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Photos: Carol Rosegg

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Photos: Carol Rosegg

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Photos: Carol Rosegg

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Photo: Carol Rosegg

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Photos: Carol Rosegg

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Photo: Carol Rosegg

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Hanna Nyberg Bio

Hanna Nyberg is an actress/singer/artist and is currently a junior at Skidmore College majoring in Sociology with a double minor in Spanish and Theatre. She is passionate about musical theatre, art, social justice, and human rights. Hanna has been in many musicals and plays in high school and college, some of her favorite credits include Godspell, Into the Woods, Radium Girls, The Women of Lockerbie, and Playdate. She is very excited for you all to hear this podcast and appreciates all the support from her Theatre and Culture 2 class, her parents, and her two wonderful partners for this project, Annie and Emily. 

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Annie Cox - Bio

Annie Cox is an actress/dancer/singer/artist. She is currently a senior at Skidmore College double majoring in Theatre and French. She studied acting abroad at the Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow, Russia fall of 2019. She is passionate about physical theatre and exploring the relationship and limits between theatre and dance. Annie has been in many musicals and plays in High School and College, some of her favorite credits include: Cinderella in Cinderella, ChaCha in Grease, Grace in When They Came by MT Cozzola, and Christie in Playdate by Kallan Dana. In addition to her onstage work Annie works as a dance and acting teacher at the Egyptian Theatre YouTheatre program in Park City, UT. She choreographs and directs children’s theatre during the summers. Annie is excited to graduate with her Bachelors degree and explore the New York City theatre scene.

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Emily Zeller- Bio

Emily Zeller is a singer/actress/mover/artist and comedian. She is currently a Junior at Skidmore College pursuing a Major in Theater with a Minor in Media and Film Studies. Emily has had the pleasure of being in various plays and musicals as she has gone through High School and College, her performance credits include, but are not limited to, Abigail Williams in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical, Helga in Cabaret, and The Mirror/Gleeful/Grouchy in SnowWhite by Majory Sokoloff. She is also a member of an on campus sketch comedy group, The Skidmore Sketchies. Emily has taken part in various aspects of technical theater including design, light hang, scenic build and costume design. She has also had the pleasure of working on the set of the production Cabaret she was in at Skidmore. She has also worked as a theater counselor/choreographer for The Port Chester Council For the Arts. Emily is excited to continue her exploration of the arts through her passion for drawing and graphic design as well as classes that revolve around the arts administration. Emily would like to explore more works of BIPOC artists in an effort to boost the voices of those who are otherwise not heard. 

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What Did You See?

Annie Cox 

Director and collaborator Annie Dorsen explains that the play focused on the Black expatriate experience, following the Youth through LA and Europe in his attempt to find the “Real.” When asked about the design elements of the play Dorsen says “the first principle of design was to make the band the environment” (American Theatre, 34). The musicians onstage are just put in the world, “each band member is sunk into the ground, across the stange, with actors living in and amongst the band” (American Theatre, 34). They are as much a part of the story as the actors; the music style shifts with the location and follows the story. Each of the actors, besides Youth, Stew, and Mom, play different characters in the new spaces that Youth visits showing the passing nature of life. To add to the constantly shifting nature of the show the lighting changes with each place Youth travels to. Kevin Adams, the lighting designer, has worked on “electric objects” before and claims the wall “makes it possible to go from a scene to a big concert–from a simple moment to spectacle–just by turning on a switch” (American Theatre, 34). The wall is turned on in it’s full neon fluorescent power in Amsterdam to show the fun free nature of the city.  This is contrasted with the fluorescent white light of Berlin which, according to director and collaborator Annie Dorsen, was used to “make Berlin feel exposed, raw, extreme–certainly a bit more dangerous” (American Theatre, 34). The entire world shifts with each location - using music, lights, and choreography. 

Choreographer Karole Armitage explains “One minute they [the actors] may be pounding their fists in time to the music, the next doing a fake Broadway number, then a psychedelic acid trip, then a spoof on black face–or spelling out the word “ART” with the human body” (American Theatre, 34). The shifting choreography with the shifting space adds to the fleeting nature and impermanence of all the places Youth visits. The constant changing of the world is grounded with the costuming. Elizabeth Hope Clancy, the costume designer, explains her costuming choices on her website, “I made the silhouettes strong and dark so they would stand out against the gorgeous, colorful light wall created by David Korins and Kevin Adams. I gave Youth a red t-shirt to match Stew’s, so that their connection would be absolutely clear. Although the story ranges from 1970s LA and Amsterdam to Berlin in the early 80s, we avoided period clothes and went for a look that was current with a retro vibe.” The lack of specific costuming for the ensemble enhanced the idea that Youth passes through all these places and the people and faces are not important or specific; what’s important is his art and search for the real. Annie Dorsen uses Brechtian tropes of breaking the fourth wall and the narration in general. “Passing Strange” uses all design elements available to enhance and uplift Stew’s semi-autobiographical story. The blend of lights, set, costumes, choreography and music creates an epic emotional rock concert experience. 

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History and Artistic Intent for “Passing Strange”

Hanna Nyberg

Passing Strange began in workshop in 2004 at the Sundance Theatre Lab in Utah. It then moved to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2006, previews at the Belasco Theatre in 2008, and officially opened at the Public Theatre on Broadway in February of 2008. The show follows a young Black man on his journey out of his middle-class, religious childhood in Los Angeles to Europe, where he plans to discover who he really is artistically and personally. The band, who is mostly white, is placed on stage with the actors, who are all Black. There is one figure in the musical, however, who brings the band and the actors together. This person is Stew, one of the creators of the show, and the person whom the semi-autobiographical show is written about. The actors also interact with the band by touching their hair and occasionally talk to each other.  

This musical opened right after a pivotal moment in United States’ history when Barack Obama became the first Black president. It is not often we see musicals made up solely of people of color written about the lives of people of color, especially one about a queer Black man, that makes it all the way to Broadway. The Black history of Broadway, specifically musical theatre, is one that is predominantly white. Most of the roles that Black people played were created by white people who had no personal experience of being a Black person in the United States, so many of them were creating characters that were essentially stereotypes or caricatures. A few musicals in musical theatre history that began the cycle of appreciation for Black actors and creators in theatre, however, were Shuffle Along in 1921 (the first show to allow Black people in the orchestra section of seating), Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1971, The Wiz in 1975, and Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk in 1996 (Playbill).  

Passing Strange, in many ways, paved the road for many shows that went on to gain much more fame. While Annie, Emily, and I were watching the show on an Amazon watch party, we wrote down musicals that reminded us of Passing Strange. A couple of these shows were the 2012 Godspell revival, Hadestown, and Jesus Christ Superstar LIVE!

This rock musical is nothing like you have ever seen. It is poetic, truthful, absurd, comedic, and epic all at once. One of Stew’s goals while writing this show was to attract new audiences with the universality of rock music. In an interview with TheatreMania, Stew expresses that, “People are happy to hear music that doesn’t sound like musical theatre music in the theatre” (TheatreMania). He understands that mainstream musical theatre music is an acquired taste, but a rock musical will reach new audiences. There are also sporadic references and mimics of classical musical theatre and european avant garde cinema that are meant to slightly make fun of mainstream musical theatre.

What is truly different about this musical from any other musical we have seen with people of color is that this musical focuses on the contemporary heartache and struggle that Black Americans face every day, and it is semi-autobiographical. There are no stereotypes for people of color that these characters have to fit into. You can tell that the cast is just having fun on stage, freely being themselves.  

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Emily- Song Write up

Emily Zeller- Lyric Analysis 

Passing Strange Lyrical Analysis

Passing Strange, written by Stew with lyrics by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, chronicles the journey of the character Youth as he makes his way into adulthood facing challenging life decisions. The songs Prologue/Baptist Fashion Show, Keys, Amsterdam, Passing Phase, and Love Like That, highlight key points in his journey. To begin, the Prologue/Baptist Fashion Show introduces the audience to Youth and his mother. We see the two in Church, a place we soon learn that Youth does not feel welcome in or enjoy.  The lyrics are as follows; 

He saw the brownskin-ded ladies in their oversized crowns

And the jet-black deacons with them "Don't you do that" frowns

And the high yellow girls in their skin-tight gowns

A collection of verbs disguised as nouns

And ev'ry Sunday she pushed him

But she never wanted to go

Ev'ry Sunday he listened

But he didn't want to know

It's too bad they never talked about

The shared truth that dwelled below:

Who could handle the pressure

of this Baptist Fashion Show?

Stew uses his experience and compares it to a fashion show, expressing that he and everyone around him puts on a daily facade. Youth and his mother begin to fight and he makes the snap decision to run away to Europe, leading the audience into the next song, Amsterdam. The feeling of this song is relieving and refreshing. It's a stark difference from what Youth had before he left home. The lighting is also colorful and bright as opposed to the red and regular lit scenes before it. The lyrics are; 

NARRATOR:

So now let's jet the scene of the crime,

and touch down once upon a time.

As Plasticland gives way

To a new world born today.

Amsterdam, spring sunshine,

and the

Wibe is alive and the girls look 

fine

He sits in a cafe, like Baldwin

in the day.

Day-glo walls, incense air

lounging 'round in velvet chairs.

So glad he took the trip

Out of the slave-holder's grip. 

The comparison stew makes to a slave holder's grip in junction with his mothers discipline is a shocking one. It shows how emotions run deeper for the individual than we may see on the outside. The second to last song we chose to analyze in our work is Keys. Keys works alongside Amsterdam in that it continues Youth’s journey in Europe. Youth comes across a woman who is listed as Marianna, and her lyrics are; 

Don't promise, you never know…

My place ain't all that wonderful,

But I hope you find it comfortable,

So please, take my keys.

The faucets leak, the cupboard's bare,

My -ha- underwear are everywhere!

But please, take my keys

Take my keys

This is a huge moment because Youth not only took the leap to go out on his own but he was welcomed in a way that he never has before he was acknowledged with kindness and openness. Even though his decision was a snap one, he for now in the show sees a side of life he hasn't been welcomed into before. 

The final song we chose to pick apart was Passing Phase. This song is truly beautiful and shows how life will throw you in all directions but each moment will only last so long. One line that really sat with us was; 

Wish we could talk about how the means will not prepare you for the ends

How your epiphanies will become fair-weather friends

How death will make you lower your defenses

The only truth of youth is the grown-up consequences

The “grown up consequences” are something we are all learning to face no matter what age we are. The audience sees at the end of the play that Stew/Youth made the decisions that were right for him in the moment and what happened at the end is just sort of how the cookie crumbled. While its important to take stock in the now and try and work through struggles is it also important to do what is right for you individually before compromising your mental well-being.