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, co-composer, book writer, and on-stage narrator, Stew (born Mark Stewart) had never worked as hard on a project in his life.

“My band can make a record for $3,000, and it will last forever. Broadway theater producers put $5 million into a show and then let it go the next day? We just didn’t understand that at all,’’ he says. “I mean, I was ready to sneak in some friends with cameras to shoot the play before it closed, just because I couldn’t walk away from it without documenting the experience.’’

Sitting next to Stew in a Manhattan conference room is the man he has to thank for helping to immortalize “Passing Strange’’ for the big and small screens. That would be Spike Lee, the director of “Do the Right Thing’’ and “Malcolm X,’’ whose cinematic version of the play, “Passing Strange: The Movie’’ opened in New York on Friday and is available on-demand on the Sundance Selects channel starting today. [...]

Read the entire article online at Boston.com

“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 1970s, who goes on a journey of discovery to Amsterdam and Berlin. It’s a familiar story to Stew, since the musician made that trek himself, before he formed the Negro Problem, the band that first made his name. On the trip he picked up fans, including Spike Lee, who filmed the final performances for “Passing Strange: The Movie,” a live documentary/concert that opened Friday at IFC Center and will be available on TV via On-Demand starting Aug. 26. [...]

Read the entire article online at NYDailyNews.com

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 touch of a button. With less people going to the movies this year, moviemakers have had to find alternate ways to get their film out there. Video on demand has become the latest trend in film distribution, with companies like IFC, Cinetic and Magnolia all releasing films this way.

Sundance Selects’ first film to be released via video on demand will be the Spike Lee film Passing Strange: The Movie, a filmed record of the eponymous Broadway hit. “It makes sense that Passing Strange: The Movie will launch Sundance Selects,” notes Lee, “as Stew and Heidi Rodewald, the original musical’s co-creators, developed the project at the Sundance Theater Lab and Director Lab.”

Read the entire article online at MovieMaker.com

‘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 and rock crossover audience I believe would have loved the bold hipster journey.

So whenever people moan about Broadway’s tracing-paper movie clones or yet-another onslaught of greatest-hits revivals or the screaming pap that passes for pop in most of the theater, I try not to be obnoxious about reminding people of the indie-rock concert/performance-art cabaret/coming-of-age black-identity musical they should have seen.

But now they can see it, or an extraordinarily reasonable facsimile of it, called “Passing Strange: The Movie.”

In a rare cosmic convergence, Spike Lee saw the form-bending show – twice – when it was a hit at the Public Theater in 2007. He signed on to film the final Broadway performances of this take-no-prisoners production before it dwindled into a memory. The project had a limited run in movie theaters last week. On Wednesday, it will launch Sundance Selects, a new video-on-demand service offered on Cablevision, Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox and other national cable operators. [...]

Read the entire article online at Newsday.com

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 final performance. The 135-minute film captures the on and off-stage action.

The cast and creators of the musical, including Tony winner Stew (librettist, songwriter and star) and Heidi Rodewald (co-songwriter), will be in person for the opening night screenings (6:15 PM and 9:20 PM) at IFC, the popular Greenwich Village cinema. Stew and Rodewald will be in attendance for the Saturday (6:15 PM and 9:20 PM) and Sunday (3:30 PM) screenings.

Following its New York debut, “Passing Strange” will also be available On Demand nationwide beginning Aug. 26 through “Sundance Selects.”

Read the entire article online at Playbill.com.

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 summer of 2007 to see the stage show. He knew almost nothing about it, and hadn’t even heard of Stew, its star, bookwriter and lyricist, nor his musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald and their band The Negro Problem. “I think someone told me that it would be a good thing to see and that I’d like it,” says Lee.

Did he ever! The iconic director — known for such landmark films as Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever — was instantly “obsessed” and back at the show the next night, this time with his wife, and then a third time within the week with actor Wesley Snipes. At some point during the show’s off-Broadway run, Lee decided he was interested in making a film of the musical, but he candidly recalls that he knew “the money wouldn’t be there” to make a typical narrative feature.
[...]

Read the entire article online at TheaterMania.com.

Welcome to Passing Strange The Movie website, the Passing Strange site brought to you by the Passing Strange family for the true Passing Strange uber-fan!  My name is Steve Klein (guess which one in the picture is me) and I produced the film precisely because I am that kind of fan of Passing Strange. My first exposure to this amazing work of art, music, entertainment, and philosophy came when I saw it before it opened on Broadway and signed on to be one of the million producers of the Broadway show.

In case you’ve wondered how you become a producer of a Broadway show, it’s simple really: you basically either invest some money of your own or raise other people’s money to help fund the run on the Great White Way.  A musical is not something I would normally invest in (let alone go see) but PS is far from your typical musical and for that matter, it’s sort of far from anything you can describe.  That’s because it’s completely genre busting and original in every way.

That’s why I decided to pursue buying the rights to shoot the last shows of the production.  If you can’t even really describe what Passing Strange is, and if it’s so important as a piece of art, then it must be preserved so people can get to see it – after all, how many did get to see it during its short runs on Broadway, The Public Theater, Berkeley, etc.?  Probably less than 200,000 people.  And for such a major work, that is far from acceptable.

So in about a 2 month period, I got my partners at Apple Core Holdings to say “yes, lets do it” (they are fans of the show so they understood why we should), Stew and Heidi to say “yes, let’s do it” (that was very easy), the show Producers to say “yes lets do it” (a longer process to negotiate specifics but we got it done), and amazingly, my fantasy of getting Spike Lee to direct it was absurdly easy (one conversation from his car phone the day after I emailed him — he was such a big fan of the show).

So here we are.  The movie is opening in at least one theater in NY on August 21st @ the IFC Center on 6th Ave and 3rd street in the village, and hopefully more.  It goes wide on VOD on August 26th as the first release from Sundance Selects, the new distribution brand in a joint venture between The Sundance Film Festival and Rainbow Media (which owns IFC Films, The Sundance Channel, and other media properties).  It will play on PBS Great Performances series in 2010.

My dream of documenting the play and exposing it to a much larger audience that it could ever have on a stage alone even if it kept running is about to come true.  And Spike Lee took the work of art that is the play and made a work of art that is the film.  I couldn’t be happier.  I couldn’t be prouder.  And I look forward to hearing about all the joy the movie will bring as more and more people get to see it over time.

So that’s what this site is about, I hope.  It’s a place for fans of the play, the movie, the art, the philosophy, the relationships, the honesty, of this unique piece of theater, to come and share how they relate to it.  We’ve built in lots of community functionality and with a work like this so grounded in amazing music and dynamic images, that community functionality needs to come with audio and video capability – and it does.

I encourage everyone to become a member and upload your favorite Passing Strange related video and audio.  Let’s hear your rendition of “Come Down Now” or let’s see you do your best Mr. Venus performing “What’s Inside Is Just a Lie”.  Maybe you want to make your own a post-modern porno film of fully clothed men making business deals, ala Sudabey.  Or any other audio or video ideas you’re interested in recording or posting.   If you’re camera shy or just feel like typing, of course feel free to express anything Passing Strange related that’s on your mind in written words.

One of the many gifts Passing Strange gives is the universal nature of the story despite it being about a black man’s struggle with identity.  One of the many elements of magic for me is that a white, sellout business guy like myself can relate so strongly to a black artist finding his way in life.  I personally find that very exciting.  So please, feel free to share any story or other anecdote that connects you to this brilliant work.

I will also encourage participation from the Passing Strange family, from Spike, Stew and Heidi, to the brilliant cast and band members, to co-creator and stage director Annie Dorsen, and some other guest bloggers that have been part of the evolution of Passing Strange The Movie.

I hope we build a truely vibrant community around Passing Strange.  That’s why we built all of that community functionality into the site.  And if that doesn’t happen, well hey, at least we’ll have a home for all the video clips and a place to tell you where to go to get a DVD!

- Steve Klein

Producer

Here’s the answer in Stew’s words:

We have GWBush to thank for this play. Seriously. When I found out that he had never been to Europe in his youth (or in his adulthood until he becme prez!!!) I immediately knew I wanted to write a play about a kid who wanted to go to europe. That fact about Bush said a lot to me about America’s lack of interest in anything foreign except that which it can exploit (always to exploit – never to learn from). Can you imagine an uber-privileged billionaire’s son from any other country that would not have been curious enough to travel to a foreign country or two or 3 or 20? Especially when you’re talking the kind of money where you already OWN a few airplanes yourself? As someone whose experience abroad informed and shaped my very being and consciousness about everything from sexuality, politics, culture, language and human nature, I became obsessed with this factoid and decided this incuriosity was at the heart of the war. I realized that we are actually suffering the results of Bush’s and his cronies’ incuriousness… their dimwitted foreign policy time and again shows that beneath it all these fuckers don’t even care about trying to understand the world they wish to dominate.

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