PASSING STRANGE w/ Marcus Scott

Summary

Broadway Breakdown – “PASSING STRANGE w/ Marcus Scott”

Podcast: Broadway Breakdown
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Marcus Scott (playwright, journalist)
Date: November 17, 2022

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Matt Koplik welcomes playwright and journalist Marcus Scott to discuss the legacy and brilliance of Passing Strange, the boundary-breaking rock musical by Stew and Heidi Rodewald. Matt and Marcus dive deep into the show’s history, themes, influence on Broadway, and its enduring resonance for Black artists and audiences. The conversation is frank, passionate, and laced with both humor and emotion, as they unpack what makes Passing Strange “the perfect show.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Histories with Passing Strange

• Marcus Scott encountered the show during grad school at NYU, introduced by Max Vernon. The film adaptation, released not long after the Broadway production, became a creative “homing missile” for Marcus:

  "That was the show that kind of really cracked me open as an interval theater writer... It's smart, it's creative, it's poetic. It has an effervescence... it's the perfect show." (03:25)

• Matt Koplik first saw a rehearsal at The Public during a teen critics group led by Aisha Davis (who plays Mother in the show) but missed the Public run—opting for a Spring Awakening open call instead. He later attended on Broadway and became a lifelong fan. Matt still rues its lack of Tony nominations for direction:

  "I was devastated when they didn't get nominated for director... How is it that Annie did not get nominated?" (06:19)

2. What Passing Strange Is About

• Quintessential coming-of-age story about “Youth,” a Black teenager in 1970s Los Angeles venturing to Europe to become an artist and “find the real.”
• Dual narrative: The story is narrated by “Narrator” (Stew), blending biography, memory play, and staged rock concert.
• Explores themes of identity, code-switching, the search for authenticity, and the fraught mother-son dynamic:

  "It's a journey through the first 20, 25 years of his life as he goes from Los Angeles to Amsterdam and Berlin and his search to be an artist." (15:41)
  "There's a difference between reinventing yourself and lying about who you are, which is something youth keeps on gaslighting people about..." (17:18)

3. The Show’s Music, Structure, & Innovations

• Fuses gospel, jazz, punk rock, blues, Europop, alternative cabaret, and more, reflecting a spectrum of Black musical expression rarely showcased on Broadway.

• Marcus points out the crucial shift in showing Black sound onstage, moving from soul/Motown tropes to deeply rooted, boundary-pushing genres:

  "What this was doing was taking back rock and roll, I would argue, and saying, like, this is what we are." (33:55)

• Structure: Abstract and nonlinear, breaking with typical act/scene conventions, mirroring Passing Strange’s impact on Matt’s own podcast structure.

• The show’s numbers are tightly woven into the storytelling—hard to extract for cabaret, which Matt finds a mark of greatness.

4. Influence On Other Works

• Passing Strange’s legacy can be seen in shows like A Strange Loop (explicitly cited) and earlier in The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Kirsten Childs), forming a lineage of formally adventurous, thematically complex “music theatre” by Black creators:

  "Bubbly Black Girl, Passing Strange, and A Strange Loop—they’re all form-expanding musicals…” (52:07)

• The influence stretches musically and structurally, with Passing Strange helping make space for other stories of Black interiority and self-creation.
• The show also helped broaden casting horizons. Notably, cast members like Rebecca Naomi Jones and Colman Domingo have gone on to wide-ranging careers in theater, television, and film.

5. Notable Songs & Segments

• Favorite numbers:
  • Marcus: "Baptist Fashion Show" – “a 10-minute show within a song,” capturing the spectacle and politics of Black church life. (40:36, 41:12)
  • Matt: “Merci Beaucoup” for its “vibe,” also notes the raucous energy of “Keys/It’s Alright” and the unique audience-actor interplay it fostered on Broadway.
  • Both adore “We Just Had Sex” for its comedy and subversion.
  • The structural centerpiece of “Memory Song,” where artifice falls away for raw emotional truth (63:30).
• Musical motifs around “love” and recurring themes (“the real”) enhance the show’s cohesive feel (115:32).

6. Racial Representation, Black Joy, and The Production’s Legacy

• Passing Strange foregrounds Black stories without trauma porn—its protagonist’s middle-class background is itself radical.
• The ensemble’s constant shifting of characters, ethnicities, and accents onstage pushes the boundaries of Black representation:

  "You're seeing in the show, you have characters playing church people…punk rockers…Europeans… Germans. The global consciousness of Black people changes." (117:50, 119:19)

• Joy and fun as revolutionary: “The ultimate revolt is joy and fun” (120:08) - the cast’s exuberance subverts dominant narratives of pain.
• The legacy lies not just in influence on shows like A Strange Loop but also in the wider casting and opportunity it opened for Black actors.

7. Passing Strange in Broadway Context

• Opened in a watershed year (2008) that included In the Heights, Gypsy, South Pacific, and more.
• Discussion of its relative commercial under-performance and lack of Tony wins, with both Matt and Marcus pointing to the audience's preference for more conventional musical fare, and the persistent “sugar in the coffee” expectation:

  "People want their sugar in their coffee, you know." (111:04)

• Notably, the Spike Lee film of its closing performances is lauded as perhaps the best-ever filming of a stage show (36:06), making the work accessible and capturing its electricity.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Marcus on Passing Strange’s emotional resonance:

  "I remember the last time before watching it recently, I cried because I was like, oh my God, I'll never be able to write like this." (07:49)

• Matt on Youth's artistic journey:

  "He basically goes from being a teenage Mark Cohen to being a faux European Maureen is how I best would describe youth's, like, artistic journey." (18:11)

• On the show subverting archetypes:

  "What do you mean that you come from a comfortable home and that you've had... There's been no violence or sexual predator, predatorial ness or like, you haven't had any violence or drug problems?” (56:16)

• On the crowd energy during “It’s Alright”:

  "It was the first time I had been in a theater where the audience was just so jazzed about the vibes going on and Stu's energy…" (43:11)

• On the show’s legacy:

  "What it did, it really kind of opened up how black expression can be seen on stage, on the main stage. And so that will be its legacy." (119:19)

• On ‘Keys’ and the show’s celebration of trust and release:

  "A Black man who has never met this woman before… she just inherently trusts him to give him her keys… someone who doesn’t know me just gave me her keys." (121:50)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:25 – Marcus describes how Passing Strange ignited him creatively.
• 06:19–07:49 – Matt and Marcus detail their first encounters and deep emotional connection to the show.
• 15:41 – Marcus gives a one-sentence elevator pitch for the show’s plot.
• 33:55 – Marcus on Passing Strange “taking back rock and roll.”
• 41:12, 46:36 – “Baptist Fashion Show” discussed as pivotal to both story and style.
• 52:07 – Placing Passing Strange in a lineage with Bubbly Black Girl… and A Strange Loop.
• 63:30 – The emotional core of “Memory Song” and the show’s raw final moments.
• 111:04 – Why audiences so often resist unvarnished truth in musicals.
• 119:19 – How the show changed representation and opportunities for Black artists on the main stage.

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Additional Highlights

• Brief sidebars on cast members' post-show trajectories (Colman Domingo, Rebecca Naomi Jones, etc.) and the difficulty of reproducing the show without Stew as narrator.
• The show’s nonlinear development and extended gestation at Sundance and elsewhere (73:09).
• The complex Tony landscape in 2008 and the show’s underwhelming award performance (88:54).
• Discussion of the importance of joy, fluidity of identity, and the politics of trust and expression in the show.

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Recommendations & Final Thoughts

Watch the Spike Lee film version (on YouTube) to experience the show’s full energy and nuance. The cast album, while full of great tracks, omits vital transitional material.

Passing Strange remains essential for:

• Its inventive musical-structural fusion
• Its unflinching, joyous portrayal of Black identity and artistry
• The palpable sense of revolution and release it gives both audience and performers

"The ultimate revolt is joy and fun." (120:08)

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Featured Performer Close-Out: Rebecca Naomi Jones – “Ms. Rock Musical God herself.” (129:20)

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For Newcomers

This episode offers an in-depth, heartfelt, and funny introduction to Passing Strange, complete with personal anecdotes, historical context, and critical analysis. The discussion is passionate, rigorously informed, and always entertaining—essential listening for theatre nerds, artists, and anyone interested in the ongoing evolution of Broadway.

Transcript

[Marcus Scott]

Sam. Now you don't know me and I don't know you, so let's cut to the chase. The name is Stewart and I'll be narrating this gig, so just in tight, we might play all night.

[Matt Koplik]

Hello all theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theatrical. Most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called the Big Move, and it is covering shows that were so successful off Broadway that they just had to transfer to the Great White Way. And try some luck over there. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is a returning guest. You last heard him on the Caroline und Change episode. And he is a playwright. He is a reporter, journalist. You can see his articles all over different magazines and websites. You just. When we last recorded, you were working on an opera, is that correct?

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, it was Fidelio was. With Heartbeat Opera. And we did it at the Met.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, you sure did. Please welcome back Mr. Marcus Scott. Ms. Scott, if you're nasty.

[Marcus Scott]

Thank you.

[Matt Koplik]

Welcome, Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus Scott]

I'm good, I'm good. It's, you know, Sunday, we're. We're thriving.

[Matt Koplik]

You look very cozy with your sweatshirt with your hood up. I'm like, that is the way to be.

[Marcus Scott]

It's also because my hair needs to be cut. Oh, no, it is not. It is. I mean, it's. It's a nice. Like, my hair is free. I just. I just afro picked it out. So we're good.

[Matt Koplik]

Amazing, amazing. I just got my haircut recently. Humble brag. And so I'm. It is not hiding under any hoodies or hats or onesies today. Marques, what show are we discussing today?

[Marcus Scott]

We are discussing one of my favorite shows, Passing Strange by Stu and Heidi Rodewalt. Yes, Stu and Heidi. They are a brilliant group of people.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, yes, yes. What is your history with Passing Strange?

[Marcus Scott]

So I was attending nyu. I went to the graduate musical theater writing program. I do not have technical training as a playwright. Became a playwright out of necessity. That we'll have a conversation about that later. But I was there and I was introduced to the musical by a good friend of mine, Max Vernon, who wrote the View Upstairs and other shows and.

[Matt Koplik]

Was Colman Domingo in the View Upstairs. Am I making that up?

[Marcus Scott]

No, you're making that up. But Colby, Domingo did dot. Which.

[Matt Koplik]

There it is. There it is. There it is.

[Marcus Scott]

Which is around the same time. Yeah. As the Upstairs and. But yeah. Because the What I love about that show and why. And why, how I got into that show is Max introduced me after being in grad school, being around a bunch of people who basically told me that musical theater had a particular sound, had a particular way of being seen. And Max was like, well, Marcus, I really feel like you would really enjoy this show. And so I said, oh, okay, let me go see it. And so they had just like released the film because I wanted to see it live. I heard about it, but I never got to see it. And so I saw the film and I wound up that kind of, that was the show that kind of really cracked me open as an interval theater writer. I saw that right before I wrote my thesis show, Cherry Bomb. And it's kind of become this kind of like homing missile, if you will, for my creative instincts. It has everything you want in the show. It's smart, it's creative, it's poetic. There is an effervescence to it. It's just, it's the perfect show.

[Matt Koplik]

It's also very funny, guys. For anyone who's like, oh, this might be too heady for me. And don't you worry, it is, it, it's dense and it can make you feel like a dum dum. It is also very, very funny. I, my, my introduction to this show, Marques, is when I was a junior, junior in high school, no senior, no junior junior in high school. I was a part of this amateur teen, like critics class, seminar, curriculum, whatever. There was there used to be this company and program that did like discounted tickets for students. Before today ticks was a thing, before TDF was a thing, it was, you know, you had to be a member, you had to, you know, pay like a ten dollar fee or whatever. And then they would have certain, you know, discounted tickets available. And they weren't always like fancy stuff. It was off Broadway, on Broadway, whatever. But they started doing this like teen critic curriculum and they would, we would get together like every two to three weeks and we would often, you know, get sent out to see shows and then we would come back and we'd have to write stuff and share it with everybody. And our teacher was Aissa Davis, who plays Mother in Passing Strange. And she was rehearsing Passing Strange for the public at the time. And we often had our meetings at the public. And I remember we got to sit in on one of their rehearsals. It was for mom's song, when they were doing that, this is your life. I remember, I remember it very clearly. It was in like One of their main rehearsal rooms, the one that like looks like a giant, like loft hallway with all the columns, you know, And I thought it was so cool. I had no idea what I was watching. First of all, without the context of everything around it, it definitely was a number. We were all like, this is really cool, what's happening plot wise. And she was like, too hard to explain. And then we were invited to go see it at the Public and I opted out of it because Spring Awakening was doing their first open call for teenagers and 17 year old me was like, this is my chance to become a star. In my defense, I did get called back twice from that open call. However, I did miss Passing Strange at the Public. So when it transferred to Broadway, I was no longer part of the Teen Critics Group. So I paid my own damn ticket to see it on Broadway. I contributed to their grosses. So I made up for my faux pas in 2007 and March of 2008 and I super fell in love with it. It was what I was really gunning for, for the Tonys that year. I was devastated when they didn't even get nominated for director. I remember seeing the lack of directing nomination. I was like, excuse me, how is it that Annie did not get nominated? That staging in that direction is flawless. And then I remember it closed while I was at summer camp and the news came out that Spike Lee was going to film it. And I was very excited and I could share it with others after that. So that is my history with Passing Strange. And then I probably come back to it every like two years, I would say, and I give it a nice re. Listen.

[Marcus Scott]

Same. It's one of the shows where I watch it, to study it, just because to me, it's one of those shows where I remember the last time before watching it recently, I cried because I was like, oh my God, I'll never be able to write like this. It's. It's just, it's. It's such a. It's a pivotal show and. And the influence has had on musical theater since is extraordinary.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's an interesting time that it comes out and what it does and how it. And the impact it's had. And we'll get into all this as we sort of, you know, discuss the whole thing. As you know, Marcus, structure has gone out the window with the show. That's actually one of the major influences that Passing Strange has had on this podcast. Structure. Act one, act two, act three. Out the window. We discuss. I try to. I do have like a list Now, I give myself a checklist of things that I want to cover as you go through the episodes. But yeah, we will discuss all of this. Good, good shit. Oh, before I forget, guys, we actually have a couple of reviews. I want to get them out of the way. Since we famously now launched on Broadway Podcast Network, we have had two episodes come out since recording this. And I just want to quickly say before I read these reviews, because three of them deal with the same technical issue. Because I am essentially a one man banned with this podcast and I am not a technical person and I have to always lean into. However I can record with different guests, my recording equipment changes sometimes episode to episode. So for the first episode of this series, which was Rent with our recurring guest Adam Elsbury Gunkle of the Pod, we were using microphones that we hadn't used in like over a year and they were not set properly and Adam was too far away from his mic. So it was like. It was a quiet volume episode. It was not impossible to hear. But I did have a couple people reach out and be like, I can't listen to this on the subway. I'm like, yeah, you'll have to listen to it at home. Like quietly at home. Like, you can't be cooking while you listen to it or, you know, loading the dishwasher. But. So we've gotten some new reviews and I'm saying this now because a couple of them mentioned the sound. So just clench your teeth, y', all, and we'll get through them. But they are nice reviews. So cue the light in the piazza. Overture music. Five stars. Absolutely incredible. So good. So interesting. I love the current series on Sondheim that is not current anymore. Matt is beyond knowledgeable and even more opinionated, which makes for a great show every week. The episodes are always very low volume. Can you bump that up a little? They're not all low volume. Just like four of them are. I'm just telling everyone. Next one. Great podcast. Five stars. I very much enjoy this show. It's absolutely wonderful on low long car rides because my episodes are nine hours long, which is which I take a lot to visit my parents. That's nice. However, since the switch to bpn, the sound is very loud. When I turn it up all the way in my car, I can barely hear it against the sounds of the road. Other that. Other than that new issue. Keep up the good work. You've got a loyal listener in me. Five stars. This one is right to the point. Headline is what is up with the sound?

[Marcus Scott]

I'm.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm going to rave about this show because the theater nerd in me loves it. The hosts are like your best friends, sharing insight and critical, thoughtful presentations that flesh out and envelop the shows they speak about. So here is the but guys, now that you have ads, the problem with the sound is even more glaring. I'll listen to podcasts while doing other things. Never had a problem hearing all of them, but each episode of the show feels like the hosts have turned down their mics. The only way to listen to is make sure there is no outside sound that prevents hearing the show. Ads are at regular volume. One moment I can barely hear and then suddenly a full volume out of my ears. I absolutely understand that I can't control the volume of the ads. I can only try to make the episodes themselves louder. I'm gonna do my best y'. All. I hope they fix this issue because I'd love to listen as I'm doing chores around the house, but even a running faucet to dishes makes it impossible. But once again, I do love the show. Thank you. I know. Stop running your faucet while you're listening to me. Cut out everything and just listen to me. That is what you that is what God is telling all of you. Shut off the lights, tune out the world and just listen to my sultry, sultry voice. Next one. 5 stars Safe Space for conflicting Feelings I just discovered this podcast and I knew I was in the right place about an hour into the Rent episode. Rent has and probably always will be because Nostalgia. My favorite musical. But revisiting at the age of 25 has been a complicated experience because now I see and understand the issues many people have with it. I will probably defend it until the day I die. So it is sometimes hard to hear the valid criticism, but Matt and Adam did it in such a positive, thought provoking, funny way. I can't wait to listen to more episodes. But for now, the thought of Collins hopefully redeeming himself by being a safe sex advocate will live in my head rent free until the end of time and really did not mean to do that as a pun. Thank you. And finally the last one. Five stars. Informative and entertaining. Now I've just listened of this. I've just learned of this podcast and I've already listened to six episodes. That is like a two week process. Listening to six episodes of this podcast, I really appreciate getting both well supported points of view and saucy personal insights. I've now subscribed because I need more and more. Thank you so Marcus no pressure. But the pressure is on for information, saucy opinions, and entertainment. Be funny. Now go. I can't tell a joke, Marcus.

[Marcus Scott]

Now, I'm a writer. It comes to me when I'm writing, not when I'm speaking.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so you mentioned earlier, when you come back to the show all the time, you kind of just go, I can't touch this. The writing is just so good. There are some works that inspire me to write, and then some works where I'm like, it's so good, I'm paralyzed and I can't write. The last time that happened to me was when I first saw Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons. Afterwards, I was like, so I'm not touching a computer for, like, three weeks because I just. My. This is going to live in my head. And then before that was the second season of Fleabag. Anytime I watch the second season of Fleabag, I can't write for, like, days.

[Marcus Scott]

So here's the thing. I have yet to watch Fleabag. I know, I know. It's like a cardinal sin. I feel like it's the one show that everyone's like, you need to watch Fleabag. But in terms of Strange Loop, I interviewed Michael a couple of times. And also that it's really interesting that you mentioned a strange loop, because a strange loop is very much a show or product that has been influenced deeply by Passing Strange. And that's just like, structure wise, but just like the themes in it as well.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. First of all, you don't need to do a goddamn thing, Marcus. You can watch whatever it is you want to watch. You don't wear your pretty little head with what society tells you to watch. I do think you would like Fleabag. And I think the second. The first season is incredible. The second season is just a masterpiece, in my humble opinion. And perfect. And I. Every time I watch it, I'm like, no, I can't do that. But you're right. A show like a Strange Loop, I mean, I haven't interviewed Michael like you have, so I can't officially say myself, but there are so many parallels and there's. There is so much influence that Passing Strange has had. It's like a trickle effect throughout writing in musical theater. And it's very fun to see. For those who are unfamiliar with the strange of Passing, what is it about?

[Marcus Scott]

It is about a character named Youth. That's all the character's name is in the show. Who lives in Los Angeles and in.

[Matt Koplik]

The suburbs in the 70s.

[Marcus Scott]

In the 70s. 1976, with his mother, his single mother. And they attend churches and their life isn't. Is. Let me take it back. I'm like. I was trying to like, elevator pitch it. I was like, that's not how you do it.

[Matt Koplik]

Picture it. Sicily, 1922.

[Marcus Scott]

Passing Strange takes place in 1976. It follows the youth and his journey through the first 20, 25 years of his. Of his life as he goes from Los Angeles to Amsterdam and Berlin and his conquest, or search, rather, to be an artist. That's what Passing Strange is about. And I tried to do that within a sentence. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, that is very much at its core, like the gist of the show.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Youth is an African American youth in Los angeles in the 70s. And yeah, he wants to be an artist. He wants to find what he calls the real and is just always in search of it. And there is another character we must discuss, which is the narrator, who is essentially Stu, and he narrates everything. But also you find, you come to realize that it is his life story, not Stu himself necessarily. He has said that the show is not necessarily autobiographical. There's a lot of it that is from his own life, but it's not like self referential.

[Marcus Scott]

It's very much. It's, it's. It's again, a strange loop. Yeah. Like in that wheelhouse. It's. Yeah. It's a story, more or less. Bits and pieces taken from his life and you come to find out that he's. It's a memory show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

From the future.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. In the form of a rock concert, theatricals, theatrically staged performance piece.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. And.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. It's a coming of age story. And then also there's so many themes about this show that I love, that I think they do so well. The connections of, you know, parent and child and embracing, you know, your culture and your legacy and what you're capable of, but also where you come from and not. You know, there's a difference between reinventing yourself and lying about who you are, which is something that youth keeps on gaslighting people about. An Act 2. He's like, I'm not lying. It's like, this is how I feel. It's like, no, dude, you're not from the projects. You come from an upper middle class home in the suburbs. It's really fantastic. Something that's actually interesting about Passing Strange, now that I'm thinking about this, because I talked about this with Adam in Rent, I'm assuming, Marcus, you have familiarity with Rent.

[Marcus Scott]

Of course. It was like a gateway musical for, like, everybody in like growing up and 2000s.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. You. We. Whether we all are willing to admit it or not, we all had Rent as a moment for us. And like that. Like my itunes review said, you know, there is a nostalgic connection we all still have with it. And there's a lot about Rent that is still fantastic, objectively, but there's a lot of other stuff that you look at with older, wiser eyes and you go. And one of the things that I think Passing Strange does so well, that I think Rent missed the boat on, is the bravery of youth wanting to be an artist and being bad at it. Like, he's. He's. He's smart, he's passionate, he's insightful. He's just bad at making art. And once he gets to Europe and he continues doing it like, he's still, like, he gets older, he doesn't get much better. He gets better at impersonating other people's art, but he's not actually good. He. He basically goes from, like, being a teenage Mark Cohen to being a faux European Maureen is how I best would describe youth's, like, artistic journey.

[Marcus Scott]

That's hilarious. Yeah. No, his. I would argue that he does become good, but it's really not into the last song.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah. I never really thought of that last song as, like, his work. I always part of. I guess that's sort of the blurring of the lines of everything. I always just looked at that as, like, an actual musical moment in, like, his life, not him creating something. But I guess you're right. That's sort of where the lines get.

[Marcus Scott]

Blurred in Passing Strange, but also, like, that's. That's literally, like, where the concept of. That's where the show becomes cyclical. Because it's him writing Passing Strange.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. I mean, he. He becomes a good artist because the narrator has put up this very good show for us. But youth, in the moment of the show is not very good at the art. Ladies and jerks. We are the stereotypes.

[Marcus Scott]

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. I'm at war with Negro Morris.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm at war with ghetto norms. My mother stands in doit is making.

[Marcus Scott]

Me a good football player, so the sisters won't be able to tell me from the others. It is good at code switching, which, you know, the show does a lot of.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, so that's one of the themes of the title. Right. Is, you know, the title has a lot of meaning to it. It's first taken from a line from Othello. What's the actual line? I Have it written down. I thought of something along the lines, like, she sworn faith was strange. Twas passing strange. Something like that. Yes. Yeah. And passing strange in the context of Shakespeare means extremely strange, which Stu has said. Yeah. You can absolutely take that at face value. This extremely strange feeling of just sort of being alive and then adolescence being a passing phase, passing in a white culture as a. As a black man. And then what is it that Rebecca Naomi Jones says to him in Berlin?

[Marcus Scott]

She says, passing for ghetto. But. But. In the. But in the Arlington Hill song, it's black people passing for black people.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, yes.

[Marcus Scott]

Pastor's son says that.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes. And that's. And, well, the pastor's son says that after the Adrena Williams moment, when youth is at church for the first time in years, and Edwina says to him that he has to be blacker if she's. If he's going to get with her.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Lock it up a bit.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, There's. There are certain every. What I also love is that it's a small ensemble of actors, Right. And everyone but Daniel Breaker and Aissa Davis played multiple roles. So we have Rebecca Naomi Jones. How do you pronounce her name? Deidre Aziza.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Deidre Aziza.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And then Colman Domingo. And then. Who's the fourth actor?

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, my gosh. I just. His name is Rod. Rodney. Roderick.

[Matt Koplik]

Chad. Chad Goodridge.

[Marcus Scott]

That's. That's his name.

[Matt Koplik]

Yep. That's his name.

[Marcus Scott]

That's his name.

[Matt Koplik]

Roderick. I want to say.

[Marcus Scott]

Rodri. I'm not gonna stab at his name.

[Matt Koplik]

First of all, has. Has abs you could wash your clothes on.

[Marcus Scott]

My God. I mean, like, where did he go? He just kind of disappeared.

[Matt Koplik]

He's really the only one from that company that hasn't really continued. Yeah, that's the. I mean, so this cast, you know, Daniel Breaker goes straight from this into, unfortunately, Shrek, but, you know, has continued to have a really strong career. Rebecca Naomi Jones, we've seen in a million things. That's been wonderful. Deidre, you know, she's. She's around. She's done stuff.

[Marcus Scott]

She's. She's gone into tv. Like. Yeah. I mean, like.

[Matt Koplik]

And then Coleman just keeps on dominating.

[Marcus Scott]

Like, Coleman has done. I mean, Broadway. He just won an Emmy for his. For guest star or. Or supporting star for Euphoria. Rebecca Naomi Jones has become basically, like, the first lady of rock musicals. She's done everything like Wick, now Wicked. She did Hedwig. She's done.

[Matt Koplik]

She did American Idiot.

[Marcus Scott]

American Idiot, which I saw right after she left. Same Same.

[Matt Koplik]

Same. When I saw American my. My two big takeaways when I saw American Idiot because all the Spring Awakening kids, all the guilty ones went and see and they're like, Jonathan Gallagher, John Gallagher Jr. And I went in Gay Me and I saw Stark Sands from. And I was like, it's die, Mommy, die. And then I saw Rebecca. No. Jones. I'm like, it's Passing Strange. And everyone is like, you are a homosexual. And I'm like, I know, leave me alone.

[Marcus Scott]

No, I just. I remember watching that particular show and walking out and being like, well, the show was something, but she was great. She was Canadian.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's American Idiot. I like Passing Strange more.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

My two takeaways from American Idiot were I did not know Stark Sands could sing. And I went, well, he can just do anything he wants to me now. And not only is he a great actor and very dreamy now, he also sings like a damn angel. And then it was my first time seeing a Stephen Hoggett choreographed show and I thought his choreography was really exceptional. And Rebecca was amazing, but I knew she was amazing because I had seen Passing Strange. And then she replaced for the Broadway company of Significant Other, which is another show we'll be talking about at some point on this podcast. Don't you worry, Markus.

[Marcus Scott]

I would love to hear it. Your thoughts about it.

[Matt Koplik]

I think you can imagine what my thoughts are on it. Uh, I'm. I never felt more personally attacked or have my privacy more violated than when someone hacked my social media and made a play out of what they found and just threw it on stage. And they said, we're going to do one thing. We're going to change the name of the main character from Matt to Jordan and call it a day.

[Marcus Scott]

Joshua Harmon.

[Matt Koplik]

But we're not talking about him. We are talking about Rebecca Nomi Jones and then tossing Strange. But so I got. We were. We got a track, which is.

[Marcus Scott]

We got a track. But yeah, no, we're talking about. Yeah, just everybody from that particular show has become like stars. Everybody. Yeah, Dead has become a TV star. Aisha Davis has. She was nominated for Pulitzer like, like a year after passing Straight Ice is.

[Matt Koplik]

An actress and a playwright. In addition to being a wonderful critics teacher, I must say she was.

[Marcus Scott]

She.

[Matt Koplik]

I remember her being very nice to me. But yeah, she's. She's written plays and Pulitzer nominated. She's also done a lot of TV for a hot second. She was Angelica Houston's lawyer on Smash. I'm sure you remember.

[Marcus Scott]

Of course, of course. Who hasn't watched Smash or Hate Watched. If you. Depending on camp, you are in.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, we. We love. We love Smash. When Megan Hilty gets a number. And we hate it when everyone talks.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, the dialogue was. I just. I think it's hilarious. They really tried to, you know, convince us that, like, it was actually competition between Ivy and, like.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, so that's the problem when you create. When you, like, make a whole first season before it starts to air and you don't check out social media or anything like that. So you build this whole first season. It's like building Karen to, you know, be the star that they're hinting she's going to be. Meanwhile, it's airing and everyone's going, clearly Megan Hilty. So they had to do course correction for season two. Be like, no. Yeah, you guys were right. We shot the bet on that one. You know who wouldn't have made that mistake is Stu. If Stu were in charge of creating Smash, he'd be like, clearly Megan Hilty. And we'd be like, yes, thank you, Stu.

[Marcus Scott]

La la la la la la la la la la la. Naked girls at breakfast tables talking ha.

[Matt Koplik]

Smoke quote marks right at Zane Lap. You know what Stu's first musical he ever saw was?

[Marcus Scott]

What? Which one?

[Matt Koplik]

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

[Marcus Scott]

Really?

[Matt Koplik]

According to his interview on Theater Talk with shithead Michael Riedel. He talked about. He's like, you know, I knew of musical theater. I think he had seen probably a couple, like, movie musicals, because living in, first of all, la theatrical wasteland, especially when he was growing up. And he said his first musical, I believe Heidi. Heidi Rodewal took him to see. Because she joined his band around 2000, I want to say 2001, because they were sort of indie rock, underground cult figures. They were not. They were successful in the sense that they had a core audience and they, you know, were always working. And he was, I think, Grammy nominated at that point, too. But they were not, you know, huge rock stars.

[Marcus Scott]

Imagination. What I said. By any stretch of the imagination.

[Matt Koplik]

No, not that whatsoever. But he says that she took him to his first musical, which was how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. And Michael Riedel's like, well, what was that like? Thinking, you know, stu's gonna be like. I said this. Stu was like, no, it was great. He's like, it was a wonderful musical. He's like, it was. What he said was, he didn't. He had never seen songs done that way where it wasn't just about expressing one feeling or setting an atmosphere. It was about legitimately telling a story through a song or a variety of emotions in one song and having that song then connect to another song later. He's like, I thought that was really cool. Yes to. That's musical theater.

[Marcus Scott]

I love it.

[Matt Koplik]

But then. But then he got exposed to more because the interview was all about, you know, they had opened on Broadway and it was, you know, it's like the anti musical. They talked about it. Like, the way they kept trying to advertise it was. It was the musical for people who didn't like musicals. And rereading the New York Times review, Charles Isherwood, who I also don't like very much, but he was on the money in this one. He's like, don't call it a musical. You'll scare off the people that are gonna like it. I'm like, it is a musical, though. It's just absolutely like the. The. It's a variety of genre. It's not solely rock. They use a whole lot of different musical influences. And it is. It is a straightforward story. Well, it's just done in a sort of abstracty way. So. Sorry, I. I'm. I'm grabbing the steering wheel for like five more seconds, then I'm gonna hand it back over to you.

[Marcus Scott]

Go for it.

[Matt Koplik]

Thank you, Marcus. I thank you for allowing me to take the wheel on my podcast where I. Where I. Where I invited you, and then I said, you stop talking now. So this came out in between seasons of Spring Awakening and Next to Normal, and I feel like that trifecta of rock music has been very influential on the Broadway scene, all three with. In various degrees of success in different ways, I would argue, and I'll talk about this more in depth when I talk about Next Normal and Spring Awakening in their episodes. But Spring Awakening is, in my opinion, a rather straightforward story that uses songs in a non musical theater sense. The songs don't. The songs will sometimes talk about an emotional state, but they're more kind of like commentary songs in the way that, like the songs in Cabaret can be commentary songs. They're not. They're not diegetic. They don't sort of flow freely from the dialogue. Whereas I would argue Passing Strange does do that with its score. But the show is told not in as straightforward a way. It's. You know, when you tell what it's about as you did. Like, it's. You think, oh, yeah, sounds like a pretty simple story I can follow. It's like, no, no, they do not present it that straightforward. But the way that the Music is used is in a very traditional, musical theatery way. And then we have Next to Normal after this, which is a story told very straightforward with a rock score that is done in a very musical theater sense of flowing from dialogue and telling about an emotion. And there's a beginning, middle and end. And I think there's probably a reason why Spring Awakening and Next to Normal, outside of, you know, the other obvious systematic problems with the Broadway scene. But the idea of sort of what can be more swallowable in terms of how to tell a story despite audiences always saying, we want new things, when you actually give them something that's slightly off from what they know, they're always like, can you take two steps back? And that is sort of where I never thought I would say, like, that next Normal is palatable. But I, I, this is where we're at now, where I'm looking at it going, like, what a palatable show about a woman who's losing her mind over her dead baby from 18 years ago. But, like, do you know what I mean? Just like, in terms, in terms of, like, objective storytelling. Of the three, Passing Strange is the one that's a little more like, no, you have to do a little bit of work if you want to, like, ride this wave. It's not so dense that it's impenetrable, but it is like, we expect you to at least, like, sit on the edge of your seat and listen and, like, use the remaining brain cells you have.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Which I really admire. Yeah. That's all I want to say. I want you to now take the wheel. Tell me something.

[Marcus Scott]

I think that what it will. I wanted to hit on a couple of things that you mentioned which, like, the show fuses, like, musically, it fuses gospel, it fuses jazz, it fuses punk rock, it fuses blues, and it's some Europop. Yes. As well.

[Matt Koplik]

Don't you dare deny. The merci beaucoup track where he flies to Amsterdam. That is my favorite, favorite jam in the whole show.

[Marcus Scott]

True. And it also does, like, alternative, I would say, like downtown cabaret music.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Marcus Scott]

And so I feel that, like, what it did and I feel like it is very influential on especially contemporary musical theater for a reason. And I'll tell you that in a moment. But I think that, like, looking at the time period like that kind of like that Spring Awakening Passing Strange Next to Normal, what it did was that it system. If we're going to talk systemically other than like just it being like, talking about race and black people being on stage playing Europeans and so forth and so on. It's a show that I would argue the black. Even though, like, the musical theater, a lot of it benefits from black expression and black sounds. Taking rock and roll like that, blues, rock, like that, it was ahead of its time taking, you know, putting that kind of that. That sound on stage and it not having that kind of alternative rock, kind of like, Jonathan Larson sound that everyone had. Had been, you know, so familiar with for 12 years at that point. It was a very, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Marcus.

[Marcus Scott]

Saying that Jonathan Larson sound got me.

[Matt Koplik]

Real good, because you just know exactly what he's talking about.

[Marcus Scott]

But, you know, you know what I'm talking about, you know what you're talking about. And so, like, what. What this was, it took you back to, like, Lead Belly and it took you back to Muddy Water sounds that, like, while they were influential on, like, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and all the music that, like, would later influence, like, a Jonathan Larson, that those sounds had not really crossed over, really, into the pop stratosphere and so. Or into the zeitgeist, if you will. And so what this was doing was kind of like taking back rock and roll, I would argue, and saying, like, this is what we are. And it also, because of, like, what people were used to on Broadway, you know, of course off Broadway with, like, how black sound sounded like on stage, usually it's, you know, it's Doo Wop, it's, you know, Little Shop of Horrors, or it's Motown. It's, you know, or it's Dream Girls. You know, you weren't really influenced by that. You weren't really hearing that. And so what. Why the show was. And I would argue very much like, strange loop, that show, musically, what it's doing and what both shows have done is challenge how black sound sounds like on stage. And some of these with a strange loop, one would argue that it's, you know, it's a black man or, you know, writing music that sounds like Lilith Fair, you know, this here was he, you know, you know, this right here was taking a sound that was kind of like chitlin circuit music and putting it on stage, you know, and doing it in a way that honored rock legends past and present. And so, yeah, I think that Passing Strange, one day it'll get the kind of, like, love that it needs. But right now, it's still in that kind of liminal space musically.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's a little. It's in a niche space right now. What's actually given it a lot more exposure, of course, is The Spike Lee documentation of the last three performances, which I'm grateful for, and it is, in my opinion.

[Marcus Scott]

The.

[Matt Koplik]

Probably the best filmed stage performance ever. Yeah, I was gonna say. I was gonna say it. It battles out with into the woods, but the thing about the into the woods recording is, like, that is not very inventively cinematically filmed. It's just. It's a documentation of a perfect cast. Into the Woods. So that's what that is. But, like, they don't do. They don't make it like this really exciting movie. They're just like, we're going to make this not seem like a Lincoln center archival recording and gives you, like, four camera angles, whereas Spike Lee really gets in there and makes you feel. Because that's the thing about a lot of filmed theatrical works is it's really difficult sometimes to capture the energy that you can get in a theater. And that show in particular there was. It sounds weird to say Heat, because, like, that the score runs hot and cold because of sort of the emotions that run throughout it. Right. Like, once he gets to Berlin, it, like, it goes straight from, you know, beautifully warm waters to ice cold that just, like, shocks your skin, but there is sort of like an aromatic sense about the music. It's just like it fills the air and you just. It envelops you completely. And you really can't capture that in a movie, especially if it's, you know, of a stage show. You're not making it its own cinematic thing. But I think Spike Lee does or. Or if. If not, does to some people, gets as close as anyone could touch to any doubters out there. But, yeah, no, it's still a niche show for sure. Part of it is, you know, I can only. I can only comment objectively as a musical theater fan. I can't really comment on the systematic racial elements, because that is not something that I am.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, we can get into it.

[Matt Koplik]

No, you can get into it. I want to hear you talk about it. I'm saying I'm not going to talk about it, because what the fuck do I know? I can only talk about what I've read, what I've heard. Um, and no. Okay, then I become a parrot. And I'm a beautiful parrot, Marcus. But I don't want. I. That's not what this podcast is. I want to hear your take on this. But I will say from a. If we're gonna. I'm gonna go from, like, the basic musical theater standpoint of things that do hurt shows sometimes, not just passing strange, but shows like Passing Strange, which is that like. And this is a surface, shallow, level stuff. And then we'll get into surface, surface, level, shallow stuff. I'm sorry I had a stroke. But. But there's no real number in Passing Strange that one could do like an audition cut for. Could you? In a cabaret setting, which I love about that score. Like, I, I. My. Some of my favorite scores are the ones where I'm like, you can't do any cut from it because it's so. It's part of such a whole. Like, it's what I love about the great Comet score. Like, people try to sing no one else in cabaret spaces. I'm like, yeah, you did a great job. It only works in the show. Or people try to do songs from like, Lachius Wild Party. I'm like, no, I listen to anyone sing when it ends or town.

[Marcus Scott]

Love that score. Love the song. You can't do it outside the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. Like, it just. It doesn't work as well. And I mean, not even as well. Like, you just do it and you're like, yeah, I watched you be talented. But that song does not fit outside of the. The tapestry that it's woven into. And that is something I just adore about Passing Strange. I wasn't joking, by the way, when I said that Merci Beaucoup is my favorite track because it's not much of a song, but it's just such a vibe. It's. It's just there's something. And it's like the only song in the score that's like it. And it's not that it's the deepest song in the score. It's not that it's most intelligent. It's just the fact that, like, every time it comes on, I immediately get into like bridget, Brigitte Bardot, like, 60s go go. Like, I just start to feel very cute and very sexy and like you just walk down the street going, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Again, Simpleton Me also loves songs like We Just had Sex for the. Like, pure comedy. But it's also fucking brilliant lyrics.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, no, I. I love that particular. I love also just the way it's staged. You know, it's a. It's a brilliant. But probably my favorite song is probably just because I've been there. I. I was the youth. So much of my story and so many people. I know their story is they know the story of the youth. But it's Baptist Show. Baptist Bastion show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

Probably One of my favorite songs Show.

[Matt Koplik]

That's. That's also a vibe, that music.

[Marcus Scott]

That's a whole vibe.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, I mean that's also like its own mini play. That whole section is. Is it even going into the blues revelation stuff or is it just the first part of it?

[Marcus Scott]

I would say the whole thing, like. Yeah, I just think that it's the perfect song. It also just gives you. What I think it does perfectly well is that it captures cogic black church culture. Like the, the. Like the politics of it. The. The kind of the gestures, the language. All of it is in that song.

[Matt Koplik]

The showmanship of it too. Right. And sort of to see and be.

[Marcus Scott]

Seen the ones one upsmanship. Yeah, it's all. And that one's. And it captured it in such a poetic way also in a very funny way.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And. And also like that. Yeah. You know, like that feeling. I also just. I just. The story of it, it is a. It's a. It's a one act musical and a song. You know, I would say it's a 10 minute show within a song. You with the real, Hit me with the Holy Ghost. The bubble was expanding. There was a new understanding. Music is the great train. What it does so well is that it captures not only the 1970s but it also captures kind of like this post Clark Sisters like gospel sound that like that is really just evocative of the time.

[Matt Koplik]

It's also, I mean from a dramatic storytelling point, it's the inciting incident of youth's journey. It's when he connects to music in a way that will launch him for the rest of the show.

[Marcus Scott]

Is it the I Want song?

[Matt Koplik]

How dare you assume that Passing Strange would conform to an I Want song? All, I mean all his. His want is just to find the real. So every time, anytime anyone says the real, that is the I Want song. And the reprieve when Rebecca Nomi Jones says non stop to the real. I'm like. That's the reprise of the I Want song.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Right when it was starting to feel real. I love that too. I mean the whole Amsterdam section, I think is a masterpiece.

[Marcus Scott]

I was gonna say it's all right. It's probably. If we're talking about just joy, then I'm talking probably. It's All Right. It's probably.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Keys. It's all right is one of those numbers that was probably the first time I experienced in a theater an audience and. And cast energy that was just sort of blended where so, you know, we're now in a culture where audiences really want the actors to know that they're there. And so they will woo, they will scream. You know, this has been discussed a lot with Ms. Michelle, currently in Funny Girl, who is great in the show, but the audience reactions are stupid. Like, she knows you're there. She can see all of you out. You don't have to shout when she hits a note. Let. Let mama finish the song. But before this time, when we all became awful, this was the first time I had been in a theater where the audience was just so jazzed about the vibes going on and Stu's energy. And then also just the writing of it, of the rep, the repetitiveness, not repetitive. The. The continuation of the list. Josephine Baker, that's all right. James Baldwin. And it's because it just keeps going and going and it's, you know, we're now, once we get to Europe that we finally get the back wall of all the neon lights. So there's all this flood of color on stage and it's this energy that just everyone just like started singing back. And everyone got up from their seats and this was like a half full house in the middle of March at the Belasco Theater. And no one did it to be like, special or the one. Everyone was just so fucking jazzed. And it was a really beautiful moment to have. And I was. Which is why I was so glad that they did it on the Tonys. But also was like, they should just do the whole sequence. Because doing it, doing the eight minute sequence in three minutes, it didn't make sense. That just sort of changes it. They. They did their best and they, they got. They were able to get to a good energy there, but it was like, you really need the full eight minutes.

[Marcus Scott]

Amsterdam. Welcome to Amsterdam. She said, yeah, Mike look like Sodom from top to bottom. Shopping f. But it's all right with me.

[Matt Koplik]

It's all right.

[Marcus Scott]

She said, it's all right. You said, yeah, Mike looking like Sodom from top to bottom. A shopping mal of ice. But it's all right with me. That's all right.

[Matt Koplik]

Baptist Fashion show is your favorite song in the show.

[Marcus Scott]

It's my favorite song. I so what. What it does. Is that it? So for those who haven't seen it in this, in the show, Youth is attending church with his mom and he is waking up. It's kind of a ritual. It's their, their weekend ritual. And this is the first time that he gets. Or he has a religious experience, but it's not a religious experience. It's his first time Falling in love with music. You know, falling in love with. With R and B. Gospel. Call and response. And his understanding of it based on a documentary that he saw on P. And. And. And that's an. And it also is the. The inciting incident that takes place is that he acts a fool. He embarrasses his mom in church.

[Matt Koplik]

She slaps the hell out of him.

[Marcus Scott]

Slaps the hell out of him. And that moment, it allows him, or it kind of creates a distance between him and his mom, but also him in the church and puts him on the path to being a musician.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, because he joins the church choir, not for religious purposes, but to get closer to music, I guess. And then also, you know, he's following his teenage hormones when Ms. Adrianna Williams is like, get up in here.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Honestly, my. My favorite part of Deirdre's performance is her. Edwina, that. That woman just nailed it. So hard.

[Marcus Scott]

But good.

[Matt Koplik]

It's the thing about youth, which is, you know, it's so weird to call the character youth because it's also true of, like, youth in general. But, you know, how, like, we all walk down the street and we're the main character because we are the main character of our lives. You know, we're the lead. And so not only is our opinion, right, we think that, you know, everyone will share our opinion. Like, there's nothing insulting about our opinion. So when he has his religious experience at church and his insight and his, you know, epiphany of his new relationship to music and how church is related to music, he doesn't realize that, like, what he's. How he's acting is offensive to his mother because it's very different for her what church does and what it means. And he never bothers to understand what it is she feels. There's the line in Mom Song, she's like. Well, where she's like, how can you. Why can't you make room for me in your world as I made room for you in mine? And it's true. It's sort of like the nagging thing of the show of, you know, this woman who loves her child, doesn't understand her child, but loves him and is trying to, you know, get that connection back. And he just could not be bothered. And it's not until it's too late that, you know, he realizes how selfish and stupid he's been in. In this pursuit of trying to find the real. He's lost sight of all the real things around him, like his relationship with his mother, the love that's that was there because. Spoiler alert, what happens to mother?

[Marcus Scott]

Mother passes away from, we assume, cancer or some kind of virus, but she, she passes away.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

When he is out in Berlin, he's life, he's being a 20 something, he's following his hormones, he's following his passion, he's slumming it, he's living the artist life. But in doing so, he kind of puts her aside, he stops communicating with her and he misses her final moments.

[Matt Koplik]

He does. He. He ignores his roots to become someone new.

[Marcus Scott]

And.

[Matt Koplik]

He now, you know so much, there's now just so much regret in him that ultimately wakes him up. And I think that's probably what helps him become the better artist is he actually now has had the true heartbreak and pain that comes from really kind of being blind for so long and, and losing so much. All of a sudden. It's probably cancer. They don't say she, they don't say it all.

[Marcus Scott]

But like you, you, you, your mind goes places like, how does she die?

[Matt Koplik]

Exactly. And also the timeline of act two is, is strange. Passing strange, one might say, because it can feel like it's only been a few months. It's. I think he's in Berlin for a while, right? Like, yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

So he, he goes there during the night, the, the may riots of 1987, which were a big thing. This is right before the wall fell. Also similar to Hedwig.

[Matt Koplik]

And I would say if there's one score in musical theater that we could connect passing strange to, it would be Hedwig.

[Marcus Scott]

Hedwig, yeah. And it feels like, it feels like a time, but they actually, I think one line of dialogue, they actually clarify that how long he's actually been there. So he goes to Amsterdam, I want to say, in like 1985, and he's been. Or in 1986 and. And then he goes to Berlin in 1987.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, yeah, he's. He's definitely in Amsterdam for a while. Because that's the thing about Amsterdam is it's such a paradise for him. It's such, you know, magical place and you, he gets so lost in the culture and the new world of it all that, you know, it's sort of like a. You blink and six months have passed and you blink again and nine months have passed. And he. Part of the reason why he ends up leaving Amsterdam is because it's just so perfect. He can't write. He's either. I have no pain to communicate. I only have this wonderful whole feeling. I just feel so complete. I can't be Here anymore, which we're all sitting there being like, bitch, stay. Do you know how rare it is to feel this way? Fucking stay. I don't know. I love how this show also just plays around with genres all the time. When he decides he's going to leave for Europe, it's like about to be this big emotional moment and then the scene changes and they do it like a French film. Yeah, it's so good. Oh, it's so good.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, yeah. I think that like what, what the show does well. So like, so where, where it sits. I mean, yes, you can compare it to a Hedwig especially. That's the only, really the only musical we can really compare it to the.

[Matt Koplik]

Template of Hedwig, I guess.

[Marcus Scott]

But I would argue that it's actually in a really interesting trifecta. I would say that like in terms of like black expression and like what this kind of like this a new that. I would say it's music theater or like it's musical theater. Yes, but it's music theater. It's changing how musical theater is seen or expressed. So I would say that that trifecta would be the Bubbly Black Girl shuts her Chameleon Scan by Chris Kirsten Childs Passing Strange by student Heidi and then it would be a strange loop by Michael R. Jackson. And they're all because one are just tethered together like thematically but also musically they're the. They're kind of these form expanding musicals, each of them with their own sounds. Where Bubbly has that explores like girl group and explores traditional musical theater, it explores R and B and show tunes. A strange loop explorers like Lilith Fair alternative rock, it explores gospel, folk, bedroom pop, alternative rock music. And Passing Strange is kind of tethered in between the two of them. And also thematically Passing Strange, what that does by comparison is that it's looking at code switching, it's looking at black identity and it's doing it through this kind of fourth wall breaking odyssey age story. Bubbly black girl sheds her chameleon skin. What that's doing while it's also kind of an odyssey, it's coming of age story and it follows a character similarly over a similar period of time, about like 10, 15 years, from a little girl to a young adult that explores a young woman who is dealing with internalized racism and self worth and also segregation or de facto segregation and racial profiling at that time in the wake of like the 1966 the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. That particular show is looking at her experience of that and her kind of coming into herself and, like, really kind of not trying to be an angry black woman. Not trying to express rage, trying to hold it all. And also with feeling a difference, kind of like going away, going to New York. Not really running away from her roots, but, like, she goes to New York and she tries to be an artist, you know, and this is based on Kirsten Child's career. She worked with Richard Pryor. She has a very long career as a showgirl before she became a musical theater writer. And so you're watching her experience, you know, working with Bob Fosse on Chicago, having to, like, code switch as a black performer.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And it's, you know, you see, like, so thematically, it's tethered to that and Passing Straight and, excuse me, not passing a Strange Loop. What that does, it's kind of honoring both of those shows and, like, looking at the legacy of both of those shows. But what it's doing is that it is exploring black queer life in the age of Truvada and looking at that through the prism of, like, people kind of, you know, growing up in the age of social apps like Jack and Grindr and what that can do to a fat, black queer person. And, you know, and look at their self worth. And also looking at how AIDS has affected the black community and created divisions upon divisions upon divisions. Looking at the double consciousness. So all of them, each of these shows are looking at Web Boyce's black consciousness, looking at the double consciousness that is forced on African Americans. Feeling like you have, like, you're. Like, you're both black and you're both American, but you can't, like, be both. And, like, having to, like, walk that tightrope.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And they're being confines of, like, what. What you is. You have to be like if you're gonna be both. Something I really like about. Strangely, I'm not as familiar with Chameleon Skin as I am with Strange Loop in Passing Strange. But something I like about both of those shows is that with the protagonist, they do explore everything you're talking about, as well as on a human level, what it is about those characters in particular that is keeping them from achieving what it is they want to achieve. Because a lot of it is the world and society and community and the rigidness of what everyone in their communities are supposed to be, and then their own personal obstacles that are keeping them from becoming a better them, if that makes sense with Usher. And I don't want to talk about Strange Loop too much because that is Going to be the final episode of this series. I'm. I'm giving it. This series is gonna be on for like the next six months. So I'm like giving it some time. But, you know, with Usher, there's so much about him mentally and emotionally that is blocking him from everything around him. And part of it is a wall to protect himself from all the trauma that he has experienced and continues to experience every day. And then part of it is also just his. The self. At some point, the self defense mechanism just becomes a shield that keeps everything outside at arm's length. And you can't grow without interaction. You can't find any success unless you try with other things. And I like, I do like the strange loop constantly is swinging back and forth between those two things. And I think Passing Strange does the same thing in a less harsh way because youth has not really. And that what I actually. And I think part of the reason why there's so much humor in Passing Strange and why ultimately Passing Strange should be more palatable for audiences is like youth's life has not been hard. And there's. And there is a conundrum for a lot of people about that as a black man in America, it's like, what do you mean that you come from a comfortable home and that you've had. There's been no violence or sexual predator, predatorial ness or like, you haven't had like any violence or drug problems. Like, what do you mean that you're a. That you come from a household where everyone is educated and nice and intellectual. What do you mean? And him coming out and throwing, like, if I want to make an impact, do I have to, like, be damaged in a lot of ways? So he kind of puts on that skin that doesn't really fit him because that's not what he's about and doesn't make him less of a successful man of color in America, if that's the case. And I, I think that is sort of an interesting perspective that Stu gives the show and I like, because in order to tell everyone's story, we have to tell everyone's story. And I. And that's something you were sort of talking about with the code switching with Kristen Childs was her name.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. So. So Kirsten Child. Yeah, her.

[Matt Koplik]

Sorry, Kirsten Child.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. No, yeah. So what, what that does, what all three shows do is looking at. Because Kirsten also came from LA as well. And. But she makes her journey to New York, not to Europe.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And she came from, you know, a middle class home. She did not suffer from poverty. She did not have, you know, drugs in the household. There wasn't any kind of like, to, you know, at least in the play, there's no. There's no sexual violence. There's no, you know, we're not seeing what you. You know, we're not seeing black trauma, you know, like, not in the way in which we're used to seeing it, because that's. That's really. That's what these shows kind of combating in a way. It's like the only way you want to see black stories on stage is through by having black trauma. Because black trauma makes money. We don't make money from it. But.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, because it makes. It makes white shows like that for white audiences. I. Sorry, I could only speak from the white people that I sit around, but when I hear them talk about these shows, going to see these shows and talking about the importance of it all, I sit there going, do you think you've done the work by sitting there and. And feeling bad about yourself for 90 minutes? That's not like sitting there and watching a show about black trauma is not doing the work. Like, you're, You're, You're. It's sitting there for 90 minutes saying mea culpa and then walking out and be like, I am such an ally. Because I sat there and felt bad for 90 minutes. Like, no, there. There are so many other stories to. To embrace and support. So I know. Do you know, speaking of Kirsten Child, do you know who Candy Brown is? Candace Brown?

[Marcus Scott]

Candice Brown. Isn't that a playwright, I believe?

[Matt Koplik]

No. So she was a Broadway dancer in the 60s and 70s, and I think through the early 80s, she was a Fosse girl. Worked with Michael Bennett a couple times. She's one of the original dancers that A Chorus Line is based off of. She was, like, in that core group that did that day where they basically sat and got drunk for nine hours and talked about their lives. And.

[Marcus Scott]

I'm like, can't do that today.

[Matt Koplik]

Can't do that today. But, I mean, the character of Richie in the Chorus Line is inspired by her. And I'll talk about this more in the Chorus Line episode, I suppose, but, like, part of the reason why Richie does not have any major trauma in the shows because Candy doesn't have. Never really had any major trauma. And she's talked about this, and she's sitting there listening to all these people just cry about my parents. They don't love me. And I. And she. They get to Candace being like, well, Candy, tell us about being a black woman in America. She's like, my parents love me and want me to be happy. I should. Like, I went to school.

[Marcus Scott]

We.

[Matt Koplik]

I.

[Marcus Scott]

We.

[Matt Koplik]

I never wanted for anything. I came to New York. I got a job. It's all been good. I'm so sorry. Like, she's like, I'm so sorry that I can't tell you guys about the sad life. Like, I've done very well. And, like, that's. I. That story is just as valid as any other story. And I. And so I like. I like having all these different perspectives. And it's always humorous to me to watch wide audiences be like, huh? I'm like, yeah. Believe it or not, there are people who are not white who've had very successful, wonderful fall lives.

[Marcus Scott]

I remember when I owned everything. The sun and the moon and the rain. My domain stretched and yawned along the astral plane. The universe is a toy in the mind of a boy. And life is a movie, too, starring you.

[Matt Koplik]

I really can't talk about Strange Loop too much because I have so much to say about that thing, and I have to say this for the episode, but I will say Memory Song is when all the theatrics go away. And he's just raw and there it's.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, God, yeah. And. And if you. And if you, like, look at it too. I mean, they do it in passing. Estranged as well. Yeah. Where everything kind of goes away. And he. He's. You know, it's really. I mean, he's kind of got head working the wound, and then he just go. You know, he sets the scene for his mother, and this is a moment.

[Matt Koplik]

It's. Yeah, the. The art finally has a moment of. Of human connection and love, and it's the simplicity of it all. After, you know, two hours of everything, of just kind of just stopping it all and saying, you know what? Like, as exciting as this is hot, as this is electrifying, as this is, this, none of this is real. We keep talking about. And he says that he gets to this at the end where he's like, we keep talking about the real, and youth keeps looking for the real. And he talks about Pretzel Man.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, that monologue kills me every time.

[Matt Koplik]

I'm trying to find the exact. I wrote down some of the words that Pretzel man said. I can't. I don't. I didn't write all of it. But the kid is looking for something in life that can only be found in art. Some people find art more meaningful in life. And there. There is an artifice to art, of course. Right. But what everyone's always trying to do when they're telling a story theatrically or dramatically is, you know, finding kernels of truth and presenting them in a way that everyone can connect to and hard. And there are varieties of ways to do that. Either you go super hardcore on the reality, like just make it a minuscule moment of life and make it as detailed as possible, or you go for a bigger picture and you make it a little more abstract so everyone can kind of project their journeys onto it. It's, you know, the corporate negativity people have, like, that One Direction songs, it's like. And that Bo Burnham made fun of is like, they're so generic about the girl they're describing that every girl in the world thinks it's not them. Like, girl, I love your face because your face is on your body. And every girl's like, my face is on my body. But so with Passing Strange, he, Stu and Heidi really kind of just. They throw every genre of music out there, including, like, even Colonels of musical theater. They do it for, you know, comedic effects because they don't really know how to write musical theater stuff. They don't look down upon it.

[Marcus Scott]

Big moment. It's like he tries to sing his I'm Not Gonna Take I'm Getting out.

[Matt Koplik]

Of this Town song. He does.

[Marcus Scott]

That's what it's called? Yeah, yeah. And he says, I can't write it. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

I think what makes it so good for people like me who, you know, are true musical theater babies, is like, Heidi and Stu have no disrespect for musical theater. They like it. Like, Heidi actually likes musical theater. Not likes it more than Stu, but she's known it longer than Stu has. They both enjoy musical theater. They're just like, that's not how our brains think of songs. And that's totally okay. They've learned a lot from musical theater in terms of storytelling, which I really appreciate. But, yeah, he's like, we tried to write it, we couldn't. And so there's no mean spiritedness about it. The humor just comes from like, we tried, couldn't do it.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, that's. Well, that's kind of the ethos of. Of his whole, you know, of their whole song writing career. Because, I mean, they really only have two musicals. They have this. Have another show called the Total Ben, which was at the Public.

[Matt Koplik]

And I totally saw it too.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I do saw. Yeah, I saw both iterations of it. So I saw the the original, when they were trying it and it was come and whatever. Well, you know, we're just going to fix it, and then we're going to actually do the presentation later. And very different shows.

[Matt Koplik]

What they have in common, Total Bent and Passing Strange, is that they are both very much a vibe. And I don't mean that in the way that, like, Instagram girls say, like, she's such a vibe. I mean, like, you're in the theater and there's an electricity about the way that Stu and Heidi write music and the way that they use it for storytelling, that even if you're not entirely sure what's going on, you are very much involved. And, like, I cannot tell you what the plot of the Total Bent was. I remember something about a recording studio.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, it's. It's about a son and a father and son, but it's changed. So, like, the version that. Did you see the recent version? The last. Last.

[Matt Koplik]

I saw whatever was at the public. At the Impasse or theater, whatever it's called. Where?

[Marcus Scott]

With the guy from that show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, that guy who did the thing.

[Marcus Scott]

Did the thing. Oh, my God. It's a great move. It's a great show.

[Matt Koplik]

Anyway, the guy who played the Sun, I don't know if he was known yet or if he was or if he got known right after that, but the guy who played the son. What?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, with Kirsten. With Kristen. What is that show called? I'm gonna be so mad. I watched it. I watched all of it. I.

[Matt Koplik]

It was Kristen.

[Marcus Scott]

Kristen. With Danowitz and Kristen.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, Kristen Bell. No Bell.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Ever did a show together?

[Marcus Scott]

Well, they did. Well, they did a thing. Yeah, they did something. That's how they met. But I'm saying she did an actual. She did a show with the guy from Turtle Band. And what is that show called?

[Matt Koplik]

The House of Lies.

[Marcus Scott]

No, no, it was called Good Place. Good Place. Thank you so much.

[Matt Koplik]

Wait, who from the Good Place was in the Total Bend? Was it cheating?

[Marcus Scott]

Cheating? That's what I remember. Yeah. Okay.

[Matt Koplik]

Marcus Scott, you've been sitting on this information.

[Marcus Scott]

I was like, yeah, yeah. So the guy who did. Yeah, no, you do know.

[Matt Koplik]

You do not. Wait, I don't. I don't trust you. I don't trust you as far as.

[Marcus Scott]

I can throw you.

[Matt Koplik]

I am convinced that you are getting your wires crossed because thousand years, you were calling him that guy from the thing who did the stuff, and I do not trust you as far as I can throw you.

[Marcus Scott]

He was in a Good Place. Yeah. And. And so his name Is William Jackson Harper. Yes, he was.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, that's him.

[Marcus Scott]

So, like, he was in the. The show.

[Matt Koplik]

So he did it in 2012, I guess.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes. So.

[Matt Koplik]

Yes, he didn't. Because I saw the one in 2016. That's not who I saw.

[Marcus Scott]

So that's so. Yes. So I. I. So who was. I forgot. It doesn't matter. But now. But that's.

[Matt Koplik]

It matters to me because that's when I saw it. And I. Yeah, like, if I saw Genie do the show, I will lose myself.

[Marcus Scott]

That's when I saw it. I saw both. Yeah, that's. So he did the first version of it.

[Matt Koplik]

He played the sun in 2012. And who played it?

[Marcus Scott]

Was it. It was. Oh, it was a two.

[Matt Koplik]

Langston Wood, Who. Who I eventually saw in Slave Play. Yes. When I saw Slave Play, I was like, I remember you, and I don't remember why. And then I looked in his program. Ben. That's right. He has a song when he, like, takes over the mic, and he's, like, standing on a chair or something, and he's just, like, feeling his body. And I was like, that is the track that I want to do if I ever, ever go back on stage. I want to play a role where I get to sing a stew song and I just get to feel my body on a chair in front of everyone. I want that life.

[Marcus Scott]

No, it was. I mean, it has one of the best songs, too. It's called Mary Magdalene. I love that song. It's a whole bop. But, yeah, what. What I would say about that show, what that show did was, so it's about a father and son who go to. Who are trying to record an album. They have the gospel act, and the son has been under the father's shadow for a long time, and he strikes out on his own to become his own artist. What the show really is about, like, if we look at it from, like, from, like, a metaphorical thing, it's actually following, like, the. The Passion of Christ. Like, he has. It's literally looking at, like, his rise, and then it's looking at, like, his downfall.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

Or if you're looking at it from a pop culture stance, it's the closest thing to, like, the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spider from Mars. It's looking at the rise of a. An icon in the fall downfall.

[Matt Koplik]

I also love that you're like, here are all the levels and layers to the show and the religious elements. And I'm like, I just liked it when he was being a slut. On chair.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, it's. It's a very, like. It's a very, like, philosophically, it's actually very. And also, it helps that I spoke to. I got to meet stu at the 2012 version, and I spoke to him about both Passing Strange and the show. Of course, I was going over to him as, like, a fan. Not because they know Stu, like, well.

[Matt Koplik]

Now you know Stu. You're like, oh, that man. He and I. Well, what did you guys talk about? Regards to Passing Strange? Because that is, technically speaking, the show we're talking about.

[Marcus Scott]

I will. What I was doing is I was working on my thesis, which is not, like, Passing Strange, but I was asking him about, you know, just about the criticisms he got and, like, how did he come along to, like, the structure of it? And he just said it was, like, a lot of it was rehearsal and a lot of it. He really gave a lot of power to the director, and so that really helped shape him because he's, like. He says, you know, he's a storyteller, he's a songwriter, but in terms of, like, shaping the show to what it became, it became a lot of her teaching him, like, the mechanics of how to write a musical.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, that's also the power of collaboration. And this show was in development for three, four years. They started as a workshop at Sundance Theater Lab, which is, people remember, is where Fun Home was developed. And I think Caroline or Change even had some development there. A lot. A lot of shows that people would know also got.

[Marcus Scott]

Also did some. Some stuff there as well. Who did Strange Loop?

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, the thing with Passing Strange. So usually you go for, like, a season to develop and whatever, and then you go off and you do workshops elsewhere. Passing Strange is one of the few musicals that got asked back two years in a row to come back for further development, which they did. And then they did their world premiere at Berkeley Rep, I think, in 2006. That sounds right. Yeah. And then they did their production at the Public in the spring of 2007 and then moved to Broadway in the early part of 2008. So that's. I mean, that's a lot of development.

[Marcus Scott]

And that's a lot of development. But if you think about it, that's actually very short for musicals. I mean, considering, like, that Hamilton took seven, eight years to write.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, Hamilton is also, like, the danger of when one person is responsible for creating all of it. And Stu very much is like the brainchild of Passing Strange, but he's still held accountable by working with Heidi, by Having Annie as his director, you know, basically, Lynn had sort of Tommy Kale check in every nine months. Be like, did you write a song, Lynn? You write a song today?

[Marcus Scott]

I wrote one a year. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, we have to, like, we're gonna, like, expedite this.

[Matt Koplik]

I, I, I relate hard to Lynn in the sense that, like, you give me a deadline and I will get it done. But if left to my own devices, like, I will say, well, I wrote a scene yesterday so I can spend the rest of the week playing video games. Which is not really how that works.

[Marcus Scott]

But also, we just have so many different distractions now. I mean, like, that would. I did a story about Stephen Sondheim for the New York City center for into the Woods. And in my, My research, I found out that, like, they wound up writing, like, Gypsy in, like, four months.

[Matt Koplik]

It's. Yeah, well. And that was. But that was an anomaly because, like, for people who want more information on Gypsy, you can go back to that episode in the Stephen Sondheim series called Little Sondheim Music. But it really, that show is an anomaly for all of them because Arthur's never written anything as good before or since. My hot take is that Arthur Lawrence was a very smart man who wrote a couple of good things and, like, two great things, but wrote also, like, a lot of crap that he never was willing. He always blamed the failures of his plays on other people. And I'm like, girl, you wrote, like, seven Broadway plays that all flopped. Maybe the problem is you and Sondheim, God love him, procrastinator up the wazoo. And also, like, collaborating with Arthur and Julie Stein, so, like, had people who was holding him accountable. And, like, most shows are not written that fast. I think the only Broadway show that was successful that was written faster than Gypsy was Wonderful Town, but that was because they had to do a complete overhaul between, like, Broadway and, like, off out of Town and Broadway. Like, they had a whole different creative team. And then Compton Green and Leonard Bernstein came in. They're like, guys, we have to throw everything out, start from scratch. And, like, oh, shit. Oh, we got a month. We got, like, a month to do this. And I mean, Wonderful Town is a good show. It's not as great as Gypsy, but considering they had, like, a month to write it, you're like, God bless.

[Marcus Scott]

But I mean, what shows are as good as Gypsy? I mean, like, you know, it's true.

[Matt Koplik]

I mean, Gypsy is objectively pretty, pretty perfect. My guest, Preston Max Allen found one flaw in it, which is that there is no indication whatsoever in the show that Louise will ever become Gypsy Rosalie. Like, she never makes an astute observation or a comical wisecrack. Just like you need one or two moments that can foreshadow who she could become if she comes out of her shell. So when she does, it's not a total surprise. As it is this. It's all on the actress to create that arc during the strip. And Benanti has probably come the closest to. Really.

[Marcus Scott]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Benanti pretty much nails it. But again, because it's such an uphill battle, she doesn't. She. I don't want to say she's, like, 100 successful at making go. Oh, yes. The trajectory makes perfect sense now. She just. She navigates it as good as anyone can, and that is all you can ask of her. It's not her fault that Arthur Lawrence gave her no setup until that moment to become Gypsy Rose Lee. We just had sex. There's nothing sleazy bout a natural reflex. It's nice and easy. No need to crane your necks. It's all cool, breezy. Baby, what's a little bedroom traffic? Evening news is pornographic. We just had sex. That's right. All three of us. It's not complex. It's no big deal at all. We smoke cigarettes and probably talk about 10 or 15 things before anyone brings up the fact that we just had sex. That might be another reason why there's. Why it's difficult for that show to continue to thrive is there's the question of, can that show be performed effectively without Stu? Like, does it. Does the artifice become too much when you have someone playing him?

[Marcus Scott]

I. I would argue that, yes, it could still work. The thing I think, though, to your point, when it comes to scansion and prosody, that, like, if you were to hand someone the book, you know, the script to Passing Strange, and say, go compose it, that no one would come close to the breath and the. I don't say it's deep, but just like the heart and the soul of it. The. Because of. Of. I just think that musical theater, it takes it and takes an outsider, someone who's not a musical theater person, to write the show that he wrote. Musical theater. I think that, like, there are people. There are musical theater composers and artists who are currently working in the form that are pushing it, that are really kind of taking it places and taking it to exciting places. But so much of them have the same influences. You know, you have your Lachiusa composers, you have your Sondheim composers. You have your Larson composers, but I think that this right here is pulling from so many traditions outside of musical theater that almost you need to kind of have that world culture that he kind of, like, cultivated throughout his career. Absolutely. His artistry, to bring it to the stage. And because it's pulling from so many different places, I just think it's impossible for someone to sit there and try to emulate the sounds that he's emulating. You can watch it, you can study it, but it's one of those things of. Doesn't live in you. It doesn't live in you. And this is one of those examples. And I would say to compare it, same thing with a headwind, like, you know, you could. You could listen to David Bowie, but if you aren't. If you aren't absorbing David Bowie, you can't write Midnight Radio. No, you. If you. You know, if you are interested in the New York Dolls and you're listening to their albums and you're absorbing their music, that's how you write a sugar daddy. But you can't write. You know, you can't write A Origin of Love if you don't. If those. You know, if you're not listening to Roxy Music or if you're not listening to, like, the music of that time, it's just. It just won't happen. And I think that, like, it's. It's something. It's very similar to Stu. He's pulling from, you know, the Clark Sisters. He's pulling from, you know, Muddy Waters. He's pulling from some princes in there. All of the influences that he highlights. He's pulling from Josephine Baker and her recovery acts. You know, so he's. All of that is in the show.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. Well, so two things. Number one, the way you sort of talk about Stu and how he approaches this show and. And when you talk about, like, outsiders of musical theater coming in and writing musical theater works and sort of changing the game just due to their. Them not being part of the world. It's that. It's one of the rare instances where, like, ignorance is bliss. I don't know if you've ever read any interviews. The way you. The way you were just talking about Stu reminded me of the way Orson Welles talked about making Citizen Kane, which was his first film as a film director. And when people said, like, you know, you created so many cinematic things that we do today that no one ever done before, like, how did you think to do it? And he's like, I didn't know how to make a movie. No one told me you couldn't do it. He was like, he's like, I don't know. Like we got on set, I was like, could we maybe move the camera this way? And no one told me know. And that's sort of the way I feel like Stu and Heidi created Passing Strange was like they would write things that just sort of came to them that seemed organic and natural and it was so different from anything else because they didn't really know that no one did that. It's just where their heads went. And so in the way, there's a wonderful ignorance to all of that that really creates fantastic new works where learning about the pillars of theatrical storytelling help is sort of just in the consistency of churning out more stage works. But I think what you're talking about that I fully believe and I wish more people did. This is just exposure to everything and absorbing everything. You know, you talked about Sony musical theater writers. Now we have our people emulating Lynn and Sondheim and Lachiusa and then the new Pasek and Paul's and doing the everyone trying to write the next this is me. And I'm like, go yourself. But I. The world is so immense and art, there's just a never ending fountain of art coming out and there's hundreds, thousands of years of art to absorb. You gotta look at all as much of it as you can of various degrees. Not if you're writing a musical. Don't just look at every musical that's ever written. Listen to different genres of rock, country, doo wop, watch movies. Sondheim loved movies. He would think of musical theater as a film score. Books, tv. Go out into the street and see what's going on out there. Experience some new life. There's just so much to take in and it can influence you to write anything. And as we were talking about the different flavors of this score, you know, in the same way that it reminds me a lot of Caroline or Change or Great Comet. That's like. It doesn't adhere to one specific genre. It has an overall thematic genre. But like when. When people say, oh, is Passing Strange a rock musical? It's like, yeah, overall it's rock, but it's not rock as you would think it. And there are other genres mixed in as with in there as well. Gospel, blues, Europop, Eastern European performance art. That whole what's inside is just a lie. I'm like, everyone needs to do that once, sophomore year of college just to. Just to throw the spaghetti at the wall and try something.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes, agreed. Like Yeah, I mean, I. I feel just very strongly about that. I mean, I have a degree in musical theater writing, but I don't come from, you know, I wasn't born with musicals strapped to my arm. You know, I wasn't sitting in front of, you know, watching Oliver or, you know, Annie. Those really the only shows I knew actually. Like, you know, I. I thought that was a musical. I was like, I hate that.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, Marcus is saying all this while looking directly into my eyes and just dragging me through the dirt. Wow, Marcus. Wow. I did not. I didn't know. I didn't know until this moment how much you hated me, everything I stood for and everything I've lived for.

[Marcus Scott]

But, like, no, like. Like, I didn't have that. And so, like. But, like, it freed me to, like, write and, like, figure out form by. By watching and kind of like, by falling in love with it as an outsider coming in and trying to. It kind of changed the way I thought of, like, stories and, like. And that in many ways, it's worked against me, you know, because I'm not a scholar. I can tell you what I know what I can sit there and I can critique something. I can tell you what is working, what's not, what formula is. I can tell you, like, the history of it if I know enough about the subject. But I'm not a scholar on this. On musical theater, I do things that, like, it has been a benefit to me, and it's been a benefit to a lot of artists coming in who just take from different. Different backgrounds. And I think that what Stu has done, even though he hasn't been as prolific as some of his peers in musical theater, is that he really kind of created a lane not only for himself, but, like, for a lot of, like, new and up and coming writers. And that's how you get a strange loop. I mean, a strange loop is greatly. Is greatly indebted to, you know, this particular show. And I would even argue, you know, plays as well that are coming up and playwrights who are. Are trying to figure out who they are, have been influenced by it. I mean, ain't no more. Go to that. That's opening on Broadway. And even though you can argue that it is more of a chicken and biscuits than it is a passing strange or it's colored museum, you know, as it is, it's still there. There are still moments of clarity that are. In that.

[Matt Koplik]

I haven't seen it yet. That doesn't stop me from having a million opinions about it.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh.

[Matt Koplik]

The other day, No, I. I fully intend to see it. And one of the actresses from Chicken and Biscuits is in it as well.

[Marcus Scott]

Yes.

[Matt Koplik]

Is it? It's Ebony Marshall. Is that who's in it?

[Marcus Scott]

I believe so. Yeah. I also know that, like, there's an actress, I think, Crystal Lucas Perry, who's in currently in 1776.

[Matt Koplik]

Not currently anymore, because Ain't no More has now started performances. She left 1776 to go do. Yeah. I'm hoping that she's enjoying her time in Ain't Noah more so than she was in 1776. I. Yeah, but we're not talking about 1776. We're not even talking about Crystal Lucas Perry. We're talking about Fast and Strange, Although, same theater. Although I also do want to say, speaking of toxic asshole and pompous douchebag Arthur Lawrence, his Patti LuPone gypsy was the same season as Passing Strange. And I have discussed Patti LuPone Gypsy on this podcast before. I was not a fan of it as much as I thought. I thought Benanti was stellar. I know, I know. Oh, Marcus is, like, retreating within himself. He's like, oh, no, I loved it.

[Marcus Scott]

I'm sorry.

[Matt Koplik]

Many people did. Listen, my issue with that Patti lupone Gypsy was it was just a little too much. And I. I did see it twice. I saw it towards the end of previews, and then I saw it in August because a friend wanted to see it. And I would actually argue that Patti got better. And a lot of the show, in my opinion, got a little sluggish because it was three hours long. It was the longest show of all time because every line was important, and everyone on stage was like, no one has ever acted like I've acted before. I am acting like an actor. I know this is a musical, but we're actors. And if you read every single interview with Arthur Lawrence, he was like, the difference between this production and any production that's ever production is that this production is acting. And I'm like, arthur, Arthur, we get it. You wrote the book of Gypsy. That's enough. But so he got a Tony nomination for director for that. And I was furious because what's Annie's last name from Passing Strange? Annie Dorsen. I was like, how dare you give Arthur Lawrence a Tony nomination for making Gypsy four hours long? And Annie Dorsen, who shaped Passing Strange, who gave it a point of view, who made the whole thing come together, gets shafted. I. I say shenanigans. Tony Awards. I say shenanigans.

[Marcus Scott]

Well, this Shaft, that entire. That whole musical. I mean, the fact that it only got best musical, best book for musical. I mean, that. That says.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, that's another conversation. Because then it becomes that in the Heights versus Passing Strange of it all. And I don't.

[Marcus Scott]

And the Heights was great. I mean, it's a great. It's a wonderful musical.

[Matt Koplik]

But were you. Well, I guess you. Were you. You. Because you became familiar with Passing Strange once the movie came out, not when it was on Broadway. Were you, like, at all in tune with sort of the conversations of the Broadway scene that year?

[Marcus Scott]

So. So, yeah, I know that. So that's, like, when I, like, I was so. Okay, so that year I was an undergrad, and I was. I had just become an acting major. So I was very much a double. That's. That's what I did. I was a double major in journalism and acting.

[Matt Koplik]

I like how you and I describe our acting years. Like, gay people talk about when they were still in the closet. Like, I was confused. I was figuring myself out.

[Marcus Scott]

Then I was like, you know, I want to be a writer. That's what happened. I was like, why do I like the stage? Oh, I want to write stories. I don't want to act, but I like acting.

[Matt Koplik]

I like the attention. I just don't want to audition ever again. Just give me. Just give me a job. Don't make me audition.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, I like acting. I just. What it is, is I. I don't like the. The staginess of it. I also, like. I learned too, that, like, I like the process of it, like, being the rehearsal and so forth and so on. Yeah. But when you're on stage and you're doing it every night and you have to stop 1000%.

[Matt Koplik]

So. Sorry I interrupted you. You. You were in your confused stage.

[Marcus Scott]

Sorry. So. Oh, my God. What was I talking about?

[Matt Koplik]

You were experimenting with acting.

[Marcus Scott]

Thank you. So I had gotten into. I got into, you know, really watching the Tonys and really, like, being on top of, like, the history of it because I was around, like, a bunch of, like, theater gays, and they were. They're going to read me for Phil. So I was like, no, I have to watch, you know, like, know what's going on. And so I was very much a part of, like, what was going on with that. With that. With that season. But I feel that, like, why that particular. Well, I would argue it's just a better book than Pass then in the Heights. It's just. This right here is. It's tackling. It's tackling a million themes. It's messing with Structure in ways that were. Up until that point. I mean, like, you really didn't see Structure being messed with that much, really. Since, like A Hair, I would argue, and which is another musical I'm very, very. I know very well it was between.

[Matt Koplik]

Us and Hair for you. You. Yeah, we. You narrowed it down to this in Hair. And I said, which one do you want to tackle, babe?

[Marcus Scott]

And I was like, probably this one. And also just like, I would argue that by comparison to between this and in the Heights, I just feel that, like, in the Heights, it's the. Everyone will tell you. It's. It's. It's the. I hate to say it like this and to put in this way, but it's the six versus the strange aloofness of it all. No, it's the success. It's a lot more accessible.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. So, again, you know, I've. I don't want to talk about it too much because I have to cover it for another episode on this series. In the Heights. In the Heights is an interesting case because it is a good musical. Passing strange 1000% has the better book. You can debate the two scores because they're just so very different. And in the Heights has some amazing music and some great songs. Some of those songs I prefer to songs in Hamilton. It's like, there's like a fire to some of those songs. In the Heights, it's just exceptional. Passing strange 1000% has a better book. Just. And in the Heights book is better than the screenplay for the movie. But, yes, I watched the movie. I was like, congratulations, you made me miss the libretto.

[Marcus Scott]

But.

[Matt Koplik]

Which I never thought I would say, but I did. I missed the libretto for in the Heights. But in the Heights was so interesting because I actually saw it off Broadway with the teen critics group that Aisha Davis was teaching. And we all. I remember we all came out. We're like, that was pleasant. And, you know, obviously they made some changes for Broadway, but we all were like, that was nice. And when it moved to Broadway, there were some. I don't know what it is that they were able to lock into because Passing Strange opened about a month before in the Heights. And for some reason, the community just decided that in the Heights was the show they were going to champion. Like, that was the underdog that we were going to make a hit. And I liked it. But I Every most Tony years, Marcus, I am the Lone Wolf, the Earth Spring Awakening. Much as I loved it, I was very much Team Gray Gardens. The year of Spamalot and Spelling Bee. I was team lining the piazza. So I'm like, every year, I'm always like, I'm the outlier. And so for that year, I was like, team Passing Strange. And everyone was like, no, no, no. In the Heights, like, art's gonna win out the day. I'm like, they're both artistic achievements in very different ways. But in. But Passing Strange is. It's not that in the Heights is more feel good because, like, Passing Strange isn't a hard set. Like, it. It's not, as I said, it's not trauma porn. It's very funny. It's very heartwarming. There's a lot of lightness to it, but I think a lot of people expected it to be kind of a hard sit in that way. And in the Heights is a little more catering to traditional musical theater values of how to present a story, how to put an audience at ease, and to get like. It's so weird to say all this because, like, I don't think Passing Strange doesn't put an audience at ease. Like, I think it. Anyone who came through the door liked it and thought, like, oh, this is so much more engaging than I thought it would be. It was just about getting people through the door. We couldn't get them to come fast enough. I couldn't get you to come up fast enough that season. It took you a year. I was there. Where were you?

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. No, I also think that, like, politically, too, there was a. There's that. There was also that notion, too. It wasn't. I don't want to say it was that. No, I'm going to say was a. I think politically, because you had. Was Paul Simon had, like, the Caper man or something like that man before that. And they also had, like, Kiss. The Kiss of the Spider Woman. You know, it was just. It was this right here was the first show that had, like, a Latinx man, you know, creating a musical that, like, was bringing these authentic sounds to Broadway and doing it with a finesse in a musical theater swagger. And I think that that was just politically, that was just a very. Like, it was time for that show to become. It was also just like, you know, like you said earlier, like, it's just Passing Strange. I think the only really takeaway song that you can have is My Keys, and that's stitched to another. Another song. Yeah, like, It's All Right, you know, there's not really a song that you can, like. You can kind of like, hum, you know, you know, at a cabaret or sing in a shower, really. Having to, you know, really listen to the entire album as a whole. And so, yeah, I think that it just, it was a thing. I just. I just, I think that like people like songs that you can kind of not diegetic songs. That's not what it is. But I think you need songs that kind of like.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so it sounds. So I. I've definitely talked about this before. There's a little bit of a. Not psychotic, but like you have to be a little.

[Marcus Scott]

There's.

[Matt Koplik]

What was the term where, like, where you kind of like emotionally subtracted from it all. You're not like a. You're not a psychopath, you're a. So like I said, you have to be a little bit of a sociopath when writing musical theater because you are capturing. You're trying to capture parts of the human experience and human emotion and bottling it up in a structured way so that everyone can appreciate it and. And hummed.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, and so. And this is where, this is where the double edged sword of Heidi and Stu's ignorance of musical theater storytelling comes into play. Because you have the one side which is by not knowing what they didn't know, they broke all these barriers that they didn't know they were breaking. And as you said, like created a new lane for writers like Michael R. Jackson to now come up with a Strange Loop. Side note, I had this thought when you kept talking about the two of them. We should do a double feature of Strange Loop and Passing Strange. And the week is called A Passing Strange Loop. So like Wednesday's Passing Strange Thursday Strange Loop. And it's the. It's a Passing Strange Loop week. But you have someone like Lynn who totally gets musical theater. And within the Heights, you know, we got that killer opening in the Heights, which it's this big, big number that just gets you fucking riled up. And then act one ends with Blackout, which is an amazing act one finale. And, and Passing Strange doesn't end act one with keys. It's all right. It ends with just when it was starting to feel real. And that's. It's kind of like peters out that way. And it does. And even the show doesn't end on the big high that in the Heights ends with the I'm home. Bam.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. No, like, I mean, what Lynn did really well, you got in the Heights, the opening. You also got like. I think it's 96,000. Yep. Which is a really big number. Then you got like, then you got the, the club scene, the dance scene, the club.

[Matt Koplik]

Slash Blackout.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Fireworks.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. And. And the way, you know, look at the fire is it. There's so many, like, earworms, so. And you kind of already kind of see the designification of Len.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And his powers.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah. And there's. And there's sort of a methodical formula to it all, which I. I'm not saying to undermine what he does. And I'll talk about this more again with. With the in the Heights episode. It's. It's really impressive to do it and make it sound so organic and surprising. I did say, though, when I finally listened to We Don't Talk About Bruno after, you know, it breaking the Internet, I was like, oh, what's this song that's more popular than Let It Go? And I listened to it. I'm like, oh, this is his encanto version of 96,000. It's structured literally the same way as 96,000, which is not a bad thing. 96,000 is one of the all time great group numbers. But I. I was surprised. I was like, oh, this is what broke the Internet. But, yeah, like, it.

[Marcus Scott]

Great song. I mean, you know, like, it's no.

[Matt Koplik]

Part of your world, but it's fine. It's. It's. But like, there is something about. In the Heights of sort of the crowd pleasingness of it all. And I'm. And I'm not trying to say this as a negative about it. I. And I. And I'm. And I don't want to harp on again too much again, because I have this episode that I got to do for it, but there's a. There is a crowd pleasingness about it that doesn't feel desperate, but definitely is sort of like, we are. We are letting you in, audience and we. And we are in, welcoming you in with open arms. And when you come in, you just know we're going to give you pie, we're going to give you punch, we're going to get you a comfy chair, we're going to make sure you are good to go. Whereas Passing Strange is more like, we are going to wrap our arms around you and we're not going to let you go until the show is over. And you're not, like, it's all going to be good, but just know that you're in my arms until the entire time. And there's a difference between, like, enveloping and welcoming in. And I love both. I think there's room for both. But there are a lot of audiences that just kind of want to be welcomed in. They don't want to be Encased. Does that make sense?

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, I agree. There's a. I would say that, like, also, these are both shows that by two relatively new composers. One is, like, shooting his, you know, his. His everything at the. You know, at the wall and just trying to tell a story. Other one is trying to be the next Stephen Sondheim, you know, generation. And you can see very two different things in effect. And I think that, like, what. You know, while both of them bringing and changing the landscape of musical theater, I mean, that was a really good year for musicals.

[Matt Koplik]

That was a. I'll say. That was a really incredible Tony year. And the thing we're not even talking about besides Patty the Pon Gypsy, that was also the year of South Pacific coming in. And South Pacific really was the thing that dominated that season. And it's very easy to look back and go, oh, of course, the golden age Lincoln center theater revival. That was not. The season did not begin. And everyone was like, oh, of course South Pacific is going to be the thing. South Pacific had every thing not going for it. We all, Every one of us thought, that show has not been on Broadway in almost 60 years. Lincoln center has been batting zero for the last, like, four years since lightning the Piazza, like, everything has been bad and dull and, you know, for upper middle class or upper middle class white people. And South Pacific came out, and we're like, oh, this revival kind of fucks. Like, we were all very surprised. And so that. That season we had that. We had Pat of the Palm Gypsy. We had the really lovely Sunday in the park with George. We had in the Heights being so much fun. We had Passing Strange breaking All the Rules, and we had Xanadu just being a good gay time.

[Marcus Scott]

Yep. You had. You had Xanadu and you had Crybaby.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, we don't talk about Crybaby.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, you like Crybaby. I thought that Crybaby was a really good attempt at trying to do John Waters.

[Matt Koplik]

Sure.

[Marcus Scott]

I thought that's what it was.

[Matt Koplik]

There were two moments in Crybaby where I was like, here we go. One was Ali Mozzie doing Screw Loose, and then the other was the Escape from Prison dance. I was like. I was like, this is. This is the show I want. Everything else. I went, okay.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, but also real Talk. The movie is kind of like, okay.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, the movie's not as good as we all think it is, but the movie is a lot of fun.

[Marcus Scott]

No, it's not.

[Matt Koplik]

It has one of my favorite lines, Ricki Lake saying, my brother wouldn't Touch your titties at the ten foot pole. He likes his girls bad. Lenora.

[Marcus Scott]

Not cheap. Iconic.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, listen, it's not as good as Hairspray. It's not as good as Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble, but it's a lot of fun.

[Marcus Scott]

It's a lot of fun. I just feel that, like, you know, you can't really do. It's. There's two playwrights you really like. It's really hard to musicalize. It'll be screenwriter slash playwright John Waters and it would be Charles Bush. Like, there's. It's hard to do camp. I'm sorry. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, my God. Can you imagine, though, a Die Mommy, Die musical or a lady. The lady in question might work as a musical.

[Marcus Scott]

I could imagine them both. And I just. But I just think that you would need someone who naturally is campy, like, who has ability to do that. And camp is hard. Yeah. You know, you have to have the ability.

[Matt Koplik]

I think if you could get. I hate him very much, but he is a. He is very good at parody lyrics. Randy Rainbow to do the lyrics and then someone fun for the music. That would be. That could be a fun time. But we're not here to brainstorm that. The fun thing about this season, though, also, by the way, we were also neglecting this. This was the season of Young Frankenstein and Little Mermaid, two shows that everyone expected to be like huge behemoths that came in with hot ticket sales for about six months and then just died. And the Tony Awards ignored them both for musical and Little Mermaid got a score nomination. But that's just because Xanadu is ineligible.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean. Yeah, no, yeah. Little Mermaid on roller skates. The other show that was in Roller Skate.

[Matt Koplik]

The other. Yeah, two. We had two roller skating shows that year. My God. And then we just needed a Starlight Express revival and we were Golden Pony Boy.

[Marcus Scott]

Right, right. And like, and. And we'll call it. And Young Frankenstein. I mean, that didn't. That really. I think the problem with that show, it just. It just didn't. It didn't have the. The musicality of, like, the producers.

[Matt Koplik]

That was a show where they. They definitely came at it with the confidence of, we did the producers. We know what we're doing. And so there was a smugness about that show, not just in terms of the writing, but also in terms of how big they made it. And then they had bad blood because they had kicked out the show before them. I think they, like, they were kicking out the Pirate Queen or something like that, which was already like, bombing. But there was already, you know, like. I think it was Pirate Queen. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure it's Pirate Queen. And the story goes like they were in the middle of like a put in rehearsal and they saw Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman touring the theater with the theater owners. And they're like, well, we're getting kicked out soon. And then they, you know, did the $400 ticket. They weren't going to release their grosses. And everyone's like, go fuck yourself. They came in so smuggler.

[Marcus Scott]

I mean, yeah, and. And it closed. It closed badly.

[Matt Koplik]

And we're not doing an episode on them, so that shows you what their legacy is.

[Marcus Scott]

True. But yeah, like. And I think that, like, you know, the. I think the. The Blessing and the Curse of a Passing Strange that season is that because it was the de facto. I don't want to call it a black musical because, you know, but it was. And because it was the de facto rock musical, like, in a way, because, I mean, yes, you know, Crybaby had rock and roll, but it wasn't. It was 50s rock and roll. This right here was like the cool downtown show that was bringing rock and roll up and doing it in a way that, like, hadn't been seen really since a Hedwig, when it was off Broadway. In many ways, it kind of catered for, you know, the way or led the way for Hedwig to come on Broadway years later.

[Matt Koplik]

Same theater, no less.

[Marcus Scott]

In theater.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

And so, you know, I. But I think that, like, the. The problem with the Passing Strange that year, it just. It was a very traditional music year and it needed, I think that, like, had it come out even a couple of years ago, you know, barring the pandemic, it would have probably won, you know, a Pulitzer or, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Scott]

But I think that, like, it was just. It needed. Even though you can argue that this show, there's. Because there's a lot of scandal and controversy surrounding this musical. But. But I needed a Next to Normal, which came out, unfortunately, the following year. Unfortunately.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, well, yeah, it's.

[Marcus Scott]

Because structurally, I mean, like, it's a rock musical, right? But, like, it's. It's exploring folk music, you know, it's exploring alternative rock, it's exploring soft pop and soft rock sounds, and it's. It's putting that all.

[Matt Koplik]

All that.

[Marcus Scott]

And it was. It was doing. It was exploring musical terrain that Passing Strange is already exploring. But it did it in a way, in a very cohesive way.

[Matt Koplik]

And, yeah, I'm. I'm going to hold off my next normal thoughts for the next normal episode, which is gonna happen at some point. We're very much going out of order on this series, which I'm not mad about. It's been fun. It's been fun to just jump all over the place. But it's so interesting because next to normal, the landscape is smaller in terms of what it's trying to cover, storytelling wise.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

But I also would argue it's less truthful about what it's covering. And that is so it's. There's something about shows that come to Broadway and are unapologetic about presenting unvarnished truth and messy reality that audiences can't always accept. And some shows do it to various degrees of success. I think Passing Strange is a show that does it very successfully. Strange Loop is another one that I think does it very successfully. But it doesn't matter, really, how successful the writer and production team are at presenting it. If it really gives you that unvarnished truth, that messy reality, it almost never catches on with audiences. It is very rare when it does.

[Marcus Scott]

Very rare. I think that, like, it's. It's. It's very much a big part of musical theater while those shows close early. I mean, strange that it's closing in January. You know, it won the, you know, the Pulitzer. It won the Tony for best musical and best. But it's closing, and you can say it's because of the current market. And we're all, you know, we're coming out of this pandemic and, you know, just Broadway is not making as much money as it used to previously, you know, we've made upwards, like, nine, you know, 100 million, you know, this year. But, like. But typically, Broadway's been making a couple of billion dollars. And so, yeah, what. What those shows do is that they wind up closing and then they catch on with the community, and then people want a revival. And that's how these shows really. The life, you know, of a writer, you know, they really kind of create a career for them. But I think that, like, it's. Yeah, it's a thing about audience is really not accepting that they. They want. People want their sugar in their coffee, you know.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, it's. I. I go back and forth when I. With my views of audiences. I. Some days I'm like, you're all terrible and I hate you all, and you all need to read a book. And then there are some days where I'm like, I think some of you are Trying, but because it's not just like the sugar. It's. It's so fascinating with these shows that don't always catch on at first and then become these classics later on. All it really is is just more familiarity. You know, it's. It's having it around you more and listening to it a couple more times and. And just the repetition of it all when it. When it becomes part of your. Not your routine. But yeah, I'll use the word again. When you become more familiar with it, you appreciate it more and you want to see it more. You know, we talk about this all the time with, like, Sondheim shows. Company. While it technically was a hit, when it opened, it was sort of like a barely a hit. It won the Tony and it kind of just made back its money. But the reviews were very divided. Audiences were left cold by it. It's only become a classic now because over 50 years we. It's been in our culture, so we've been more. We've had more exposure to it. But I mean, if something. If a company like show came out today with the way the company did its own self, you know, unvarnished truth and weird abstract storytelling about, you know, our culture in a way that's just very much a mirror to our faces, many audiences would still be like, no, thank you. And it would be 15 years later when the songs are much more part of, like, the musical theater canon. We go, oh, we should bring that show back. That score is actually really great. And I will say Strange Loop when. And I'll talk about it more when I get to the episode. I will say, I've. I've been very happy to see people in my life who were on the fence about seeing it, going to see it, and telling other people to go see it. There's an intrigue about that show this season that has made me very happy to see people who in the past might have ignored shows like Passing Strange because they thought to themselves, oh, that sounds like a tough sit. Have brought themselves to go see Strange Loop because they regret the things they've missed in the past and sort of telling themselves now, like, I can't have these regrets anymore. I gotta go see the thing. Maybe I won't like it, but what if I do? And they've all liked it and it's been really nice to see that. Too little too late. Who's to say? I think it's. There are a lot of other questions in regards to Strange Loop's short run that also just has to do with the economics of Broadway today, as you said. And then we're seeing it also with new shows coming out this season, how they struggle and producers just completely not understanding what the market is right now and what is an appropriate ticket price.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, well, what's the. Yeah, like, it's ticket prices, but also there's this, like, there's still this idea of like this invisible subscriber base of, like, oh, well, we're gonna, like, try to, you know, look, you know, these are producers who are trying to, you know, pitch these, you know, these musicals to, like, middle American white women, you know, happen to be middle aged, who. Yes, they purchased the most tickets, you know, but, like, it is a thing of, like, if you build it, people will come. So if you, you know, I've always.

[Matt Koplik]

Said you need to first market it to New Yorkers, make. Make theater savvy New Yorkers go see it first. That we will buy up all the tickets. So when middle America's coming into town, like, what's hot? Like, well, everyone in New York is seeing this show. That's what happened with Hamilton, which we'll talk about with that episode and Chorus Line, like, all these shows that had. That became big hits. And we talked about with the Rent episode, like, it started with the off Broadway scene with all of New York wanting to see it there and then that power moving it to Broadway. So, you know, people will go see whatever when everyone else is going to go see. It's why when people talk about, well, critics don't really matter anymore. They still do to an extent. Because it's same thing with like a Yelp review or anything. Like, you want to hear other takes from people who took the time to see it before. You spend your own time and money on something. It's like, well, what did five other people say? And so then you look, that's why.

[Marcus Scott]

That's why we have rent heads, you know, that's why we have people who have, you know, spent their entire lives seeing, like, every iteration.

[Matt Koplik]

How fucking dare you say the dirtiest word of all time, Marcus. Rented. How dare.

[Marcus Scott]

Hugh.

[Matt Koplik]

Anything else regarding the strange of passing Marquez that you wanted to cover?

[Marcus Scott]

I just think that on closer inspection, watching the recording of that Spike Lee so graciously gave the public, because I noticed that there is a musical motif that comes along and it happens every time they mention love. So if you follow it, I just think musically, I think it's a very. Like, even though these are people who don't know, musicals did their homework. So if you look at. I Believe it's. It's the breaking your heart motif. If you follow that into a living thing, that song. What is that song?

[Matt Koplik]

Into a living thing. That.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. That follows an entire show.

[Matt Koplik]

Interesting. There's that. There's that one motif towards the end that sounds like the phantom vamp as played by Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Do you know what I'm talking about? The. Like that. That's the phantom vamp. But it's. Because it's the. But it's done like Mr. Rogers piano. It's like.

[Marcus Scott]

I never thought about that, but now I can't unhear it.

[Matt Koplik]

Now you can't unhear it. There you go. This is why. This is what you come for. This is the magic comfort.

[Marcus Scott]

Marcus, you ruined Passing Straight.

[Matt Koplik]

That's why that makes it so beautiful. You can hear that and still love it. If I had. So I was. If I had any advice for people who are interested in Passing Strange, I would say watch the movie first because it is very much a show that should be experienced and it is on YouTube, luckily. And Spike Lee did a phenomenal job capturing it. Also, it's because the cast album, unfortunately is not the entire show. They try to just capture the big songs and they do, but there's transitional stuff that's very important and it just makes it very choppy and you. And it makes it very hard to follow. And this is a show that has no to give when it comes to continuity of storytelling of like how what kind of narration they're doing, how they're gonna do it, like it's all. All free flowing. So the cast album doesn't really help with that respect. So I would say watch the movie if you can.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Also just like I. There's just certain things that they mess with that you can only really capture on stage. Like they talk about colorism, you know, in very small, you know, ways, you know, just by having the cast be who they are. Also, this is like one of the very first Broadway shows that really like challenged how we see black expression on stage. So you're seeing in the show, you know, you have characters playing church people. Then they leave that they're playing punk rockers. Then they leave that they go to, you know, to Amsterdam and they're playing Europeans. And some of these Europeans are poets or artists or so forth and so on. Then you go to Berlin and they're playing Germans. You're constantly seeing how, you know, you're looking at the global consciousness of black people changes. It's never really been articulated or presented in such a manner, sense and it really. I think in many ways, it helped with the casting of. Not just with these actors, but how we cast people of color in stories. I mean, if you look at, like, Rebecca Naomi Jones's career in the year since, I mean, not only has she become, like, this goddess of rock musicals, because I think she's been every rock musical you can think of since then. I mean, she was in Revision earlier that she was in American Idiot. She did Hedwig. She did. You know, she.

[Matt Koplik]

Murder ballad, too.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah, Murder ballot. Yeah, she's just. She. And she also. I think she. I think she did Tommy like a concert. She's done so many. Probably. Probably she's. She's just had a really become like, the new queen of, like, rock musicals. And. And if you just look at Colman Domingo's career and, like, the kind of characters he's been able to play since, he went from this. You know, he went from Passing Strange to one of my other favorite musicals, the Scottsboro Boys, you know, and. And he's playing with, you know, black stereotypes and that by playing, you know, blackface character. And so what it did, it really kind of opened up how black expression can be seen on stage, on the main stage. And so that will be its legacy.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, there's. There's a joy and a fun that the cast has in this show that I love, because I feel when it comes to all repressed communities, you know, the queer community, the Jewish community, black community, like, the. I feel like the ultimate revolt is joy and fun. You try to, like, bring me down, I'm gonna prove you wrong by, like, living the best kind of life. And so to watch that cast flip through different accents, different characters, and play also different ethnicities, which is something that's never actually discussed. But, like, they're not. Like, they're not always playing black characters, and they never address it either. You kind of test a.

[Marcus Scott]

Follow it.

[Matt Koplik]

Yeah, just follow it. And through their own detailed work, but, again, different ethnicities, different accents, different ages, different characters, different places. And they know they all get to have their serious moments, of course, but they also get to have so much fun and so much delight. And it's such a release to do that. I think that's what makes that it's all right. Keys moment so palpable is the release they all get to get from that. And, oh, something else I wanted to say about Keys, which is why something that makes that moment so beautiful and powerful storytelling and why it ends up being such a moment of joy on stage is when youth Is given the keys from Mariana. She goes, you get to hear my keys. And she's just so nonchalantly gives him her keys. And something that just. And it's an image that Stu focuses on for the rest of, like, the next six or seven minutes in two different parts. He's Mariana Keys. It's all right. And some people might be like, yeah, keys. He's met her for five seconds. Why is that important? It's like, no, no. That's the point. He's a black man who has never met this woman before, and she just inherently trusts him to give him her keys where he's just come from a country where he. There's literally the line like, women lock up their car doors when he would sneeze. But she. But she gave him her keys. It's something like that.

[Marcus Scott]

Yeah. Like, she's like, please.

[Matt Koplik]

He gave me. And the exhale of I can just be. And I. And I. And I can just be trusted, and I can walk down and not worry, and it's all. And it's all right. I have her key. Like, someone who doesn't know me just gave her. Gave me her keys. And, like, people who have seen me on the street my whole life will still clutch their purse when I walk by just because I'm listening to my Walkman. And there's a. That exhale is such a moment of independence and joy and revolution, and it makes it so I don't know how. Bubbly, fiery hot.

[Marcus Scott]

It's one of my favorite moments. Is also, like, right around that time, right after that song, he is writing to Franklin, the pastor's son, Europe, and he's saying that they told him how to wear his body, and even if, like, it's ugly to wear it like a gown. And throughout the entire show, even though he's putting on different facades and he's. He's changing different ways of who he is. He's, you know, he's wearing himself, you know, or wearing an identity, you know, but he's trying. But he's wearing. He's trying to. He's wearing. He's trying to. Yeah, he's wearing. He's trying to wear those things as beautifully and as comfortably as he can. He's trying to keep that. Keep that exhale. Also, what the show does, too, and you mentioned it earlier, is that there's a lot. There's an openness, there's a vulnerability. And, like, these are characters playing queer characters on stage, which. These kind of spaces, usually you don't really get to see that in a musical and, you know, We Just Had Sex is one of the most fun, perkies number. It's like one of my favorite songs as well in the musical. You know, it's a. It's a fun, effervescent, kind of opulent moment in the show. And even, you know, and they're. They're talking about how they all, you know, they're talking politics.

[Matt Koplik]

About 10 or 15 different things before anyone brings up the fact that we just had sex.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, but like, and. And you know, and not only does the youth in the song, you know, say that he's had a threesome with Renata and I forgot who the other.

[Matt Koplik]

Mariana.

[Marcus Scott]

Mariana. But he. But he's also had sex with, you know, the. The men as well. And it's just. And it's so nonchalantly done.

[Matt Koplik]

You know, the line is. I love that how they're so nonchalant about the only thing I want, man. And yeah, the way that they portray that with. With the queer element of we just had sex. It's the joke. Isn't. Oh, isn't it funny? Had sex with a man. But it's the surprise of it, of the. Of how he's now starting to just embrace the fluidity of sexuality. And the way that Dana Raker plays it is like it takes him by surprise as well. When the guy sits next to me, he goes, we just had sex. Taylor Breaker's face is like, I guess I did just do that, huh? Okay.

[Marcus Scott]

You know, and like it was nothing. Just like it happened.

[Matt Koplik]

Marcus, this has been delightful, lovely.

[Marcus Scott]

I've had a great time. I hope that I sound better than I did last time.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, last. The Carolina Change episode is a chaotic episode because I had to intersperse solo recordings of you. This is just you straight through Hanni. But it's. I've had a great time. Whether either one of us has made sense to any of my listeners, I don't know. I don't care. We have a new game at the end of this series, and you can play or not if you want, but it's basically Six Degrees and it's. The two titles are who Lives, who Dies? Jeanine Tesori. So you have to do 6 degrees of Jeanine Tesori with this show. And then the Other one is 6 degrees of Sally Murphy. Now I am more than happy to take over Sally Murphy. I have. I. There is a very quick Janine Tossori six Degrees here.

[Marcus Scott]

I could do six. Yeah, yeah, we can do. Sorry. I can do that. Yeah. When I try that.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, so the. The only. It has to be original company members. You can use creative teams as well. But yeah, so like, if you're connecting to shows and actors, you can't be like, well, they replaced in such and such. I did cheat last time with Torch Song trilogy, but I don't care. There is a one degree from the show with Janine Desorri.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, well, okay.

[Matt Koplik]

What?

[Marcus Scott]

Who is it? Okay, now I'm trying to think.

[Matt Koplik]

All right, it's a perform. I will say it's a performer.

[Marcus Scott]

It's not Rebecca, right?

[Matt Koplik]

No, no.

[Marcus Scott]

Oh, Danny Breaker.

[Matt Koplik]

He went right from this. He replaced Chester Gregory James.

[Marcus Scott]

That was really quick.

[Matt Koplik]

Okay, that was really quick. The next one is Sally Murphy and you follow me on Instagram, so you know that I love her very dearly. I actually haven't thought of this one yet, so give me a second.

[Marcus Scott]

Okay, now I'm trying to think of like, huh.

[Matt Koplik]

Well, I mean, we could do Daniel Breaker did Shrek with Brian Darcy James, who was in Carousel with Sally Murphy. But I want to do something more fun than that. Let's do Rebecca Naomi Jones. We'll do Recogni Jones. Rebecca was in Significant Other with Gideon Glick. Yes, that's one degree. Gideon Glick was in. Oh, you know what? Gideon Glick was in Spring Awakening with Lea Michele. That's too Lea. Michelle was in Fiddler on the Roof with Sally Murphy. That's three. There we go. I did it, Marcus. What we're learning is that Sally Murphy should be afraid, very afraid of me. This has been a lovely time, Marcus. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[Marcus Scott]

Real Marcus Scott on IG or Instagram, as they call it, or real Marcus Scott on Twitter. You can also check me out. I am doing a couple of things with Gingell theatrics. As a playwright, I have a play called There Goes the Neighborhood. It's a horror slasher. And I have a play that I'm developing called Joy Comes in the Morning with the Road theater in la.

[Matt Koplik]

Amazing stuff. If you want to follow me on social, I'm only on Instagram at Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice five star rating. You can even write us a review. I swear, I hope the sound is getting better. I'm trying my best. So if you give us a five star review, hopefully you don't have to talk about how the sound sucks. We all. I apologize profusely about the low volume on Rent. I did. I did ask a couple of listeners, I'm like, is it that bad? Like, no, it's not that bad. It's just like, it's low and you get used to it. And then that ad comes in. You're like, jesus Christ. So hopefully now that everyone knows, if you intel, if you tell people about the podcast, just tell them the Rent episode is good. It's just the volume is off, but otherwise we're. We're doing our damnedest. Join us next week for who knows what, because we're doing this whole thing out of out of order. As you know, Marcus, we do close out every week with a Broadway diva. And you know who we have not closed out with yet is Ms. Rock Musical God herself, Rebecca Nomi Jones. So I say we close out with her.

[Marcus Scott]

Let's sign up on it. Yeah.

[Matt Koplik]

So, Marcus, this has been lovely. Everyone. Catch us next week and yeah, that's it. Have a great week, everybody, and take us away, Rebecca. Bye.

[Marcus Scott]

Falls across my face Just like the rain in a storm the floor creaks, the doors.