"Passing Strange," the L.A. Rock Musical That Never Played Here, Opens at Pasadena Playhouse

Twenty years after its Berkeley premiere, Tony-winning director Zhailon Levingston brings Stew and Heidi Rodewald's rock musical home for its Southern California debut, running through Nov. 29.

By Herald Staff · Nov. 5, 2026, 2:30 PM ET

The Spanish Colonial Revival courtyard of Pasadena Playhouse, with red-tile roofs, arched entries, tall palm trees, a wooden State Theatre of California sign and string lights under a bright sky. — Pasadena Playhouse's Engemann Family Courtyard in 2023. "Passing Strange" began performances there Nov. 4 and runs through Nov. 29. Photo: Jeff Lorch, Pasadena Playhouse (cropped) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (license).

Nearly two decades after its Berkeley world premiere, the rock musical "Passing Strange" has finally opened in Southern California. Performances began Nov. 4 at Pasadena Playhouse and continue through Nov. 29, with the official press opening set for Nov. 8 — a long-awaited L.A. homecoming for a show steeped in this city's streets, churches and middle-class dreams.

The musical, created by Stew (book, lyrics and music) and Heidi Rodewald (music), with Annie Dorsen as original director, follows a young Black Angeleno known as Youth as he rejects his single mother and the "Black, middle class dream" to search for identity and what the show calls "The Real." Much of the story is set in 1970s Los Angeles. Its title, Stew has noted, comes from Shakespeare's "Othello."

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that the staging marks the Southern California premiere of a work that first opened at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2006, moved to New York's Public Theater (where the ensemble won an Obie), then ran 165 performances on Broadway in 2008. Stew won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical; the show earned seven Tony nominations. It later played London, Spike Lee filmed the Belasco Theatre's penultimate Broadway night, and PBS aired that concert film on "Great Performances" in 2010.

A Tony Winner Brings It Home

Pasadena Playhouse Artistic Director Danny Feldman landed director Zhailon Levingston, 32, who this year won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical for "Cats: The Jellicle Ball." Levingston first found "Passing Strange" at 15 on PBS in his grandmother's bedroom in Louisiana, later studied at AMDA in Hollywood and lived in Los Angeles for four years. Stew told the Times there is "timing" and "poetry" in Levingston bringing the show home.

Levingston is not reinventing the piece the way he reimagined "Cats." "The concept has to be the people," he told the paper, aiming for a punk vibe and band swagger rather than a concept overhaul. Themes of the awkward handoff of cultural knowledge across generations sit at the center of both the musical and this revival — a conversation between Stew's generation and the artists now staging his story in the city that shaped it.

The Playhouse, California's State Theater and winner of the 2023 Regional Theatre Tony Award, frames the run as a celebration of 20 years since the world premiere of a musical rooted in Stew's own life.

The Cast and Creative Team

According to Playbill and the theater's casting release, the Pasadena company is led by Ty Taylor as the Narrator (the Stew role), Britton Smith as Youth and Saycon Sengbloh as Mother. The ensemble includes Brittany Campbell, Johnny Laveie, Devere Rogers and Tanerélle; the Times noted Smith and Tanerélle among cast members seen in rehearsal. Tislarm Bouie choreographs; Greg Nabours is music director.

The original Berkeley cast included Eisa Davis, Daniel Breaker, Rebecca Naomi Jones and Colman Domingo — names that helped carry the show from Northern California to Off-Broadway and then to Broadway's Belasco Theatre.

If You Go

"Passing Strange" runs about 2 hours and 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission, at Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m., through Nov. 29. Pay What You Can tickets start at $10 for select performances; the box office is (626) 356-7529, or visit pasadenaplayhouse.org. The theater advises adult language, sexual content, simulated drug use, strobe, haze and herbal cigarettes.

Original reporting by The Los Angeles Herald, drawing on the Los Angeles Times, Pasadena Playhouse, Playbill and the theater's casting release, as linked above.