In 2024, not long after she was named artistic executive director of The Studio@620, Erica Sutherlin made a prophetic statement right here in the pages of the Catalyst.
“The Studio is 20 years this year, and we can’t keep doing the same thing for 20 years,” she said. “We have to revitalize it. We have to bring something new into the space, to push it forward.”
The Studio @620 is 22 now. Attentive theater-watchers will have noticed the dramatic increase in stage plays at The Studio since Sutherlin assumed the position. From bold takes on old-school classics (A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar) to contemporary thought-provokers (Cadillac Crew, Tail of the Bell, Hir) it’s become a hub for restless creatives. A go-to for cutting-edge theater. Alternating, as always, with art exhibits, dance productions and more.
Sutherlin herself directs the musical Passing Strange, opening Thursday (June 11) and running through Sunday. It will repeat the four-date series June 18-21.
California musician and songwriter Mark Lamar Stewart, a.k.a. Stew, wrote the book and lyrics to Passing Strange, with assist on the music and arrangements from Heidi Rodewald.
A New York Public Theatre production debuted Off-Broadway in 2007, with Stew co-starring, and Passing Strange went to Broadway the following year. It won (out of seven nominations) the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and a Drama Desk Award, and a New York Drama Critics Award, and an Obie.
A live four member band shares the stage with seven actors to tell the story of an unnamed young man (“The Youth”) embarking on a journey of self-discovery.
The songs, including rock ‘n’ roll, soul, punk, blues and more, are organically interspersed with the dialogue. They add to and interrupt one another. “The songs,” Sutherlin points out, “are part of the storytelling. Stew’s character is the narrator, and he tells the story using music, and using rhythm.
“He was asked in an interview if it was autobiographical. He said there are some real things that occurred in this story, but as all writers know, writing about yourself isn’t interesting. So it is a kernel of his journey, his young adult journey.”
It could be anyone’s journey, fraught with self-doubt, dead ends and wrong choices. “It’s about taking this journey with this young boy, across the pond to Europe, as he searches for his identity,” she explains. “Who he is. The ‘real.’ As we all have done in our youth, when we want to get away from home and see the world, when we think our parents aren’t cool any more.
“And the parents having to let that child go and become a young adults, that process, and what that detachment feels like. And then the child wanting to find their own voice. Their own tribe.”
It’s not only a non-traditional musical structure. Passing Strange upends the oft-used theatrical arc of Black youth, in that the protagonist is not trying to escape an urban nightmare of poverty and abuse.
He just wants to see what else is out there.
“I really love that I get to tell a story about a young Black boy that grew up in Middle Class America. And there’s not a lot of stories being produced that talk about that. We’re not investigating his pain, his trauma – we’re just really dealing with what it’s like to be this person.
“At moments he feels like he’s not enough. He’s not Black enough for some people. He’s not ‘this enough,’ for another group. And so, ‘Who am I?’
“It’s just another aspect of life. It’s another aspect of Black American life. And I think that’s the journey, and the conversations and the questions I want to wrap around.
“It’s not screaming, in your face rock energy all the time. It’s not that. If I don’t get the story across, then I didn’t do my job.”
The actors/singers are Jacob Smith as the Narrator, Andre “Shacar” Smith as The Youth, along with Patrick Arthur Jackson, Olivia Neal, Janesia Kelly, Ariel Blue and Troy Brooks.
The band consists of Latoya McCormick, keyboards; Charlie Jacobson, guitar; Alax Braman, bass; and Andrew Deeb, drums.
Passing Strange dovetails nicely with Sutherlin’s stated desire to up the creative ante at The Studio@620.
Still, she concedes, she’s not one to pat herself on the back.
“I’m happy with where we are, but we still have other places to go,” Sutherlin says. “There are some things coming in the pipeline. We’re shaping out this space – who is this studio, how does it survive, how do we remain sustainable?
“But I do love where we are, with the art, the events and the theater, and we’re just going to keep digging in and enriching those things.”
Find Passing Strange showtimes and tickets at this link.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
