MARY SAID:
I saw an interview recently where you said you’ve about 2 broadway musicals….and then you make a statement like that. You are one pretentious dude.

Dear Mary,
I guess I should be flattered that you even bother to notice such perceived inconsistencies in my statements. I hope you do the same with our politicians. For those are the guys to really watch.

Now hear me out: The number of musicals, broadway or otherwise, that I have seen was the topic of far too much interest on the part of journalists interviewing me when PS was running. Early on, during rehearsals i think, I made some frank statements about the musicals I had seen that my producers had given me free tix to. My statements reached a few NY newspapers and my producers freaked. They explained to me that on broadway one didn’t diss other shows publicly. They kindly and respectfully asked me to refrain from doing so. I respected the protocol and began dancing around the issue every time the topic came up. And it came up ALL THE TIME because journos wanted me to diss shows cuz it made good copy. So i began saying publicly that i had seen far less shows than I had really seen. Because then i only had to talk about the ones I liked: Chicago and…can’t even remember what else. Anyway, I couldn’t publicly say I had seen (and sometimes walked out in the middle of) 5 to 7 musicals. That would have offended people.

Now that said, I have seen nearly every big important film version of the great broadway musicals and I am familiar with the story lines…and i can tell you that my statement you quoted is totally true. There is nothing in Phantom or Oklahoma
or Chorus Line that makes us think “What the hell is going on here? Where am I? Who are these people?” Most americans aren’t familiar with german anarchists, amsterdam hash bars, or black american women who speak two distinctly different types of english. I could name 30 other things that PS has in it that weren’t typical of a broadway musical. Like Black people not being stereotyped or comic relief, for instance. But i digress.

Also, it wouldn’t take a theater expert to make the statement i made. Broadway is about selling tons of tickets. It’s mass culture entertainment. You don’t make mass culture by being even slightly complex. Otherwise Sondheim would, as he deserves to be, as or more popular than Lloyd Webber.

But i suspect your real reason for trying to “trip me up” is that like some
broadway fans i have encountered you are
disturbed and/or insulted by my attitude
towards the broadway culture. If this is the case with you, and i apologize if it is not, please note that I was as disturbed by many aspects of broadway culture as you have been by my “pretentious” statements.
/s

I saw an interview recently where you said you’ve about 2 broadway musicals….and then you make a statement like that. You are one pretentious dude.

Wow, not used to that intensity. I concur to the person who dissed you Stew. Honestly when I first saw it I thought hmm… this is not Broadway it is too rock and it should stay in clubs. >>>

STEW: I would love to someday explore that first thought: “this is not broadway…too rock…should stay in clubs…”
Fascinating.

>>>I think the CD really helped me see the “real” Passing Strange. Now this is one of my favorite musicals!>>>

STEW: I’m really glad. My guess would be that the CD was a purely musical experience that allowed you to get to the heart of the show, i.e. the music. And speaking of cast albums, I’ve heard people say that andrew lloyd webber is not cool cuz he has released cast albums BEFORE the play came out. But I can’t really see what is so wrong with that.

Johnny B wrote:

>>I’ll stay here in my spider hole drawing inappropriate scribbles of debauchery and menace constructing nonsensical noodles on my four track cassette machine circa 1980 laughing like a loon.>>>

STEW: More power to you. I feel completely connected to everything you wrote in your post. And shit, I’m still looking for a tascam porta-two in great condition!!! It was the only machine that never got in the way of me making music on it.
I totally feel your sentiments and I think me and Heidi have simply had our spider hole dragged into the Public light by people who like us and have some pull. we never tried to be top 40, rich or famous. That’s why I think PS trips people out: they’ve never seen the spider hole under the big lights…or at least not in a long while.

>>i read in the paper this morning about some little 3 year old beaten to death by his caregivers. i feel terrified and sick to my stomach at how fucked up the world is. this may seem appropos of nothing regarding your post and my comment, but i’m just feeling perspective about what’s worth getting worked up about.>>>

STEW: that 3 year old story is, of course, appropos everything. and good point about perspective and what’s worth getting worked up about. Heidi would tell you I could learn alot from that observation. and i apologize for getting worked up. i am really not good at this whole business of intimate exchanges
over the internet. you and me could probably sit 80 nights in a row at the bar and i’m certain i would never get as angry with you as i got with your email. You are not your email. I hope nobody confuses me with my email. Although I would like to have my email’s waistline.

joxn wrote:
>>i guess i was just hoping–for you and your band– that you would feel the “broadway” response not as a lack but as a difference, and that there might be an opportunity there for some additional dimension of mind blow for you in the same way you are bringing a new dope slap to audience only experienced in the old forms.>>>

STEW:you hit the nail on the head. that additional dimension is what i search for every night. i’ve had to invent a new way for me to perform in front of these people – (old dog, VERY new trick) and i’ve had to invent this new trick in real time… in front of hundreds of paying customers every night. It’s nothing you can rehearse at home. it’s exhilirating and maddening and terrifying like a good horror movie in that nobody gets hurt but it’s still a little scary…in a very fun way. i’ve pretty much given up on putting the mic in the audience’s face and trying to get them to behave like it’s a rock show. now i just keep the party onstage while reminding them they’re invited. They seem to like it.

Jbreck wrote:

>>>I heard rumors of crowds on Fri/Sat nights being pretty energetic, good time to come and see the show?>>>

STEW: I have to say these days we never know. Fridays can be very quiet sometimes and we have had matinees that totally rock.
We can’t really predict it anymore.

Barry Shank wrote:
>>I hope that you know how good Passing Strange really is. It is clear that you know what its strengths are and you are right that it is about doing coke with transvestites at 4:30 AM, and how that is more common that many let on. But it is also — and importantly — about how to reconcile the drive to be good with the drive to be real; the desire to make something out of yourself while recognizing that so much of that self was a gift from others. Your play is amazingly and powerfully articulate about that tension. It is not just about a boy and his women. The women were important conduits for that gift of self. Which is why Youth was in love with them–even Mom.>>>

Hi Barry. Well, I wouldn’t label “how to reconcile the drive to be good with the drive to be real; the desire to make something out of yourself while recognizing that so much of that self was a gift from others” as more important than doing coke with a tranvestite at 430am, since doing
coke with a tranny can, and often does, encompass those very two things that you find so important about the play. But I absolutely get your point. You’ve eloquently pointed out two major themes of the play. I think I was just acknowledging alot of the important things that are NOT in PS that never made it to the stage that were a big part of Berlin and A’dam for me. The transgressive experimentation done in both cities was an important part of the whole “trip” as it were. Many spiritual quests have taken place and epiphanies been delivered in dirty public bathrooms with folks of unspecified gender sharing powders of ill repute. I wrote two or three very intimate scenes for instance with Venus and the Youth that had that 430am confessional glow (ala Arlington Hill) that I’d love to put on the stage someday or in a book. And god, there was a whole dark side to A’dam that I left out because I wanted it to contrast with Berlin more.

>>>One last bit–have you read The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers?>>>

STEW:I dont know it but i will look for it now.

>>>jan wrote:

>>in reply to ‘who’s SOMEBODY!?’
please give me more credit stew, i don’t mean ‘famous people’. i mean the audiences in general. i made that comment because your >>post made it seem like you were unsatisfied with the responses you were getting from your audiences. if it sounded like i was being condescending towards you or heidi, that was unintentional.>>>

STEW: i understand. so sorry for the misunderstanding.