Passing Strange

From Stew of Stew and The Negro Problem, with music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, this is the autobiographical story of a young black man from Los Angeles who feels like a foreigner in his own country. He leaves behind his middle class, church-ruled upbringing and travels to Europe in search of his artistic and personal identity, or what he call, 'the real.' Misadventures with sex, drugs, politics, and art find him in Amsterdam and Berlin where he feels acceptance for the first time. But in the end, he discovers that cultural complexity—and hypocrisy—are not limited to middle-class African American life, and that the only way to be truly real is to embrace his American heritage. A comedy-drama, rock musical that the NY Times calls, "Fresh, exuberant, bracingly inventive, bitingly funny, and full of heart.”