Boston Globe By Christopher Wallenberg August 26, 2009 Near the end of the Broadway run of the Tony-winning musical “Passing Strange,’’ the man behind the show, the singer-songwriter Stew, was baffled to learn that there would be no filmed recording of a project that he and his creative team had spent five years making. As the show’s lyricist,... more

Daily News by Mark Ellwood August 23, 2009 “Passing Strange” was a critical darling when it ran for six months on Broadway last year, and the quirky musical nabbed writer-performer Stew a Tony for best book later in 2008. It follows a would-be songwriter, known only as “Youth,” growing up in middle-class Compton in L.A. in the... more

Movie Maker Magazine by Eliza Chute August 23, 2009 Starting August 26, viewing independent films gets easier, as Sundance jumps on the “on demand” bandwagon. The Sundance Channel, which is owned by Rainbow Media, just announced the launch of “Sundance Selects,” a VOD service that will allow viewers to watch selected independent films with the... more

Newsday by Linda Winer August 21, 2009 ‘Passing Strange” is forever on my short list of theater I’d see again right now if I could. The musical, which won a barrel of awards in 2008 but not the big Tony, closed on Broadway last summer after five months. Despite the acclaim, it never reached the adventurous mainstream, multicultural... more

Playbill.com August 21, 2009 by Adam Hetrick Spike Lee’s documentary of the Tony Award-winning musical Passing Strange rocks its way into the IFC Center in New York City Aug. 21. Academy Award-winning director Spike Lee captured the musical live at the Belasco Theatre during its Broadway run on July 19, 2008, a day prior to the musical’s... more

TheaterMania by Patrick Lee August 21, 2009 Director Spike Lee and co-creators Stew and Heidi Rodewald discuss the making of the film version of Broadway’s Passing Strange Spike Lee, whose movie version of the musical Passing Strange opens theatrically on August 21, doesn’t remember why he first found himself at the Public Theater in the... more

A.V. Club by Noel Murray August 20, 2009 The stage musical Passing Strange opens with too-smart-for-his-own-good Daniel Breaker sitting in a South Central Los Angeles Baptist church, bored out of his skull. Then the pastor gets on a roll, and as the choir and organist whip the congregation into a frenzy, Breaker has an epiphany: Though he has zero interest... more

The New York Times Artblog August 20, 2009 The New York Times interviews Stew and Spike Lee, and they discuss the process of creating a filmed version of the musical “Passing Strange.” Audio Interview features Spike Lee talking about what drew him to the project, and there is also a behind the scenes film clip. Read the article on line at... more

Wall Street Journal August 19, 2009 First things first: when two artists collaborate, chances are that at some point, at least one of them will want to get naked. That’s one take-away from Tuesday night’s panel discussion on creative partnerships, part of the WSJ’s Summer Scoops Live series at Lincoln Center. The gab-fest, moderated by the Journal’s... more

The Village Voice by Richard Gehr August 19, 2009 Before their brief yet brilliant moment of Broadway glory with the musical Passing Strange, the Orson Welles of singer-songwriters, Stew, and his longtime co-conspirator, Heidi Rodewald, led the scrappy Los Angeles pop-punk band the Negro Problem. Sometimes they indulged their fandom as the Covers Problem,... more