Critics love Passing Strange

Hate to say I told you so, but it looks like I'm not the only one who digs Passing Strange.

David Rooney/Variety:

...a magical mystery tour that fuses aspects of concert, concept album, cabaret and revivalist meeting. Significantly finessed since last year's Public Theater run, this idiosyncratic odyssey toward self-knowledge explores universal questions of identity with the specificity and wry insight of autobiographical experience. It's boldly atypical Broadway fare that pulses with a new kind of vitality.

Terry Teachout/Wall Street Journal:

It's also the freshest musical in town, in part because Stew (whose real-life name is Mark Stewart) and his songwriting collaborator, Heidi Rodewald, are either ignorant of the conventions of musical comedy or don't care about them. Most likely they're more knowing than they let on, but it doesn't matter: "Passing Strange" is the most original Broadway musical since "The Light in the Piazza," and my guess is that it is headed for a long, profitable and influential run.

Charles Isherwood/New York Times:

Although it is far richer in wit, feeling and sheer personality than most of what is classified as musical theater in the neighborhood around Times Square these days, its big heart throbs to the sound of electric guitars, searing synthesizer chords, driving drums and lyrics delivered not in a clean croon but a throaty yelp.

Here's my review from Passing Strange's run at the Public. Miraculously, tickets are still available on TDF for many upcoming performances. I'll be there on Sunday, and these great reviews make me more excited than ever to see what they've done with the show.

[The great illustration above is from The New Yorker]