The star of Passing Strange talks to Radar about Broadway, breakups, and The Negro Problem

Now that Rent's happy bohemians have nearly shuffled off the Broadway stage, "rock musical" seems like the least cool phrase in the world, conjuring images of canned pop medleys, laughable "urban" scenery, and Tisch-trained belters performing cringeworthy choreography in torn jeans.

Enter the remedy: Passing Strange, the story of a middle-class black teenager who runs away from South Central Los Angeles—first to Amsterdam and then Berlin—to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. The play is a quasi-autobiography of Stew, the musical's co-creator and narrator, who sits onstage with his live band, commenting on, and sometimes criticizing, the characters throughout the show—particularly the character simply named "Youth", a gawky, punk-rock loving idealist who represents his younger self.

Though Passing Strange is often lumped in the same category as other plugged-in fare like Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening, to confuse the two, says Stew, is like saying "that two black people look alike." And he's right. While Spring Awakening becomes mired in its own plodding self-seriousness, Passing Strange glides along with the irreverent humor, improvisational flourishes, and self-referential asides of a genuine rock concert.

Radar recently talked with Stew about moving Passing Strange from its Berkeley birthplace to Broadway's Belasco Theatre; his L.A.-based band, The Negro Problem; and what it's like to break up with your girlfriend when she's part of your very small, very close-knit ensemble cast.

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RADAR: Who do you hope comes to see Passing Strange?
STEW: We really want to get the person you have to drag to the theater. Because I'm that person, too! Everybody in our band is that person. If you asked all of us, you could probably count the number of Broadway shows we've seen on two hands.

The show's new policy—$25 rush tickets for all ages—might help lure in the musical-averse.
Yeah, it's totally necessary. Shit, my friends in their thirties and forties don't really have $111 to pop on a Broadway show. Who wants to take a chance, you know?

I didn't want to have a play where the old guy got to be right. Or for all those old ladies to walk out, shaking their fingers at sons who never call them and saying, "See!"The show deals with the identity issues of an middle-class black teen in L.A. Do you find it strange that there isn't a lot of precedent for this kind of story?
Yes! That's really something that has always annoyed me about black stories. Me and my friends used to joke about how every time the black guy shows up on the screen, he's got to be some poor, disenfranchised hood from the street. We knew those guys, but the majority of people we knew from our neighborhood were not like that at all. I'm actually amazed that a musical like this didn't come out 10 years ago. I've been watching movies and TV and reading books for quite a while now—I was born in '61—and I never, or very rarely, saw my situation up there.

The whole show, you're up onstage, talking to the audience. Sometimes even making fun of the audience. How did you decide to insert yourself into the story?
Well, the whole play is really based on this idea that everybody who is 46 would like to be within strangling distance of this 22-year-old self. You'd like to be able to see everything.

There is one scene your character can't watch: his mother's funeral, after she dies while he's abroad in Europe.
In real life, I wasn't in Europe when my mom died. But I thought I had to put the kid in Berlin, to show how high the stakes are when you make that decision to be an artist and to move away from your family. So for the narrator, who's watching this kid throughout the entire play, the funeral is the final moment, the moment he just can't watch. It's also his funeral. The result of his choice to be an artist and to go away.

At the end, Youth's mother returns and seems to forgive him for leaving her behind. Why did you choose to have this supernatural moment of redemption?
I just didn't want to have a play where the old guy got to be right. I didn't want all of those old ladies to walk out, shaking their fingers at their sons who never call them and saying, "See!" I wanted it so nobody was moralizing, and the kid could be right at the end also. In so many ways, if you're an artist, no matter how old you are, you're still that kid. Having the mother come back is the kid's way of showing the narrator, "No, you actually can't lose faith in this thing called art. This is all we've got at this moment."

Speaking of old ladies, at the show I went to there was a fair number of the stereotypical Broadway theatergoing contingent—fur-coated white ladies—mixing with a younger, hipper set. How is playing Broadway different from Berkeley [where the show got its start] and New York's downtown Public Theater?
Berkeley was pretty easy. The crowd instantly knew what we were talking about. No matter how many references to pop culture or drugs or sex or politics, no matter what you threw at them, they got it. That was very nice, to be understood. When we moved uptown, everybody worried that we'd lose half the references.

Did you?
I really don't know. There are jokes that work some nights, and other nights they really don't. I should say that in Berkeley, as easy as it was to make jokes, there were downsides. A lot of Berkley Repertory Theatre members didn't even come to our play, because they're so full of themselves, intellectually. They said, "Oh, it's just a musical, I don't like musicals," and refused to come.

No matter how cool our producers might think they are, I know good and well they wouldn't have put a dime toward this play if Spring Awakening hadn't won all those TonysYou've said that your show is nothing like that other Broadway juggernaut, Spring Awakening.
It's not meant to be a dis at all, because I am so glad that Spring Awakening exists. But my impression of the music is that it's really still musical theater music. I think our songs could be listened to by someone as just regular music on an album. (You could tell how old I am when I say words like album.) That said, I'll tell anybody: The reason we're on Broadway is because of their success. There's no question about that. No matter how cool our producers might think they are, I know good and well they wouldn't have put a dime toward this play if Spring Awakening hadn't gotten all those good reviews and won all those Tonys.

Your band is called The Negro Problem. Pretty provocative name. Were you trying to grab people's attention?
I guess it was around '95 when we thought of that name, a couple years before we released a record. We were just an irreverent bunch of people. I think we were actually trying to reach out to people who shared our crazy sense of humor. We never thought, "Oh, wow, we're damaging our top-40 possibilities by calling ourselves The Negro Problem"—because we knew from the start that we weren't making top-40 music.

Heidi Rodewald, who started The Negro Problem with you, is your ex-girlfriend. Is it tough to have such a close working relationship with a recent ex?
To be honest, it's been very difficult. We broke up while Passing Strange was in Berkeley and barely had a one-month break from each other before we were living together again and working on the play with our director. We're sort of like a divorced couple that still lives and works together. But our priorities are set: It's all about the play, 24/7. We don't socialize as much right now. It doesn't mean we're not friends or anything—we're collaborators for life—but we try to keep our social lives as separate as possible just to get a break. We've never had that time, that space, that other couples have.

You're doing eight shows a week. Any risk of burnout?
At this stage, it's mostly psychologically tiring. You wake up in the morning knowing, I gotta do this thing. It's different than touring, when you can play a different show at night. When you can get up and play a half-hour song if you feel like it. You can just fuck around. Even though we have a lot of room for improvisation, we have to do the same show every night and there's something taxing about that.

The Wall Street Journal's review of the show was positive, but the writer concluded: "I don't know whether Stew has another story in him." Do you have another story in you, or is this it?
I think I do. I've written a screenplay for Sundance Film Lab and we've got at least two ideas for musicals that we're banging around. Will we ever do something on Broadway again? I kind of doubt it, because I don't think lightning strikes twice. We're up here, we're enjoying our run. If it lasts two more months or two more years, we're cool.

The story is really your own, yet you do have an understudy. How often does he go on? Does the audience feel cheated?
So far, he's never gone on. You're right, so much of it is my story. But I believe that any good actor or good singer—not to say that I'm a good singer—could go up there and do it for two-and-a-half hours. It really can be done without me, easily. A lot of people don't feel that way, but I think that's crazy.

It looks like Passing Strange is in for a very long run. There may come a time when you have to step away from it and pursue other projects. Do you think it will be hard to let go?
No way. If I could give Forest Whitaker guitar lessons right now and have him step into my role, I'd be completely happy. It's like a gig. I think there's gonna be some amazing chubby, 40-ish actor who's going to step into this role and kick ass. I'm convinced of it.