Passing Strange is a daring, hilarious, and moving musical that takes us on a journey across boundaries of place, identity, and theatrical convention with a young bohemian who charts a course for “the real” through sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Written by the acclaimed singer-songwriter and performance artist Stew, Passing Strange is loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion, Stew’s storytelling brings us from Black middle-class America to Amsterdam, Berlin, and beyond on a journey towards personal and artistic authenticity.
PASSING STRANGE
April 19-May 21, 2023
Loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion
Meet The Cast
Colin Carswell
Rev. Jones, Terry, Christophe, Hugo
Colin Carswell is an actor, writer, and musician based in NYC by way of Nashville. Set on becoming one of Hollywood’s next big multi-hyphenates, he wants to be a reflection of the beautiful complex messes that we all tend to be. He was last seen in the Cincinnati Playhouse & Actors Theatre of Louisville co-production of Once On This Island. Thank you to God, his family and friends, his reps, DPT, and all the artists inside of all of us. This one is for high school Colin.
Lulu Fall
Edwina, Mariana/Desi
Lulu is a singer, award-winning songwriter, actor, and visual artist from Washington, DC. Lulu is a jazz/soul vocalist with a musical theatre background, newly based in Detroit. Theatrical highlights: HAIR (first National tour, Broadway); Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, off-Broadway); Hadestown (off-Broadway); Wild Goose Dreams (off-Broadway); Hastings Street (Detroit Music Hall). TV credits: Random Acts of Flyness (HBO); The Last O.G. (TBS); The 71st Tony Awards (ensemble performance for Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812). Lulu was a finalist in the 4th annual Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition. Lulu independently released her debut EP, It’s Official, in 2009. Other music releases: Heal: Part 1, in 2015; The Unpaved Road, in 2017; Between Two Worlds, in 2019 under Ropeadope Records; Transform, was released in 2022. Songwriting Competition highlights include: Mid-Atlantic Song Competition (MASC); TOP 5 WINNER in the Great American Song Contest; International Songwriting Competition (ISC). In 2021, Lulu launched her visual art Etsy shop, LuluFallAbstracts.
Bereket Mengistu
Youth
Bereket grew up in Ethiopia adoring Hollywood and Bollywood movies. He got his first professional theater training at the Ethiopian National Theater in 2010, and that shifted his passion to the stage. He moved to New York in 2015 and since then has had the pleasure of playing remarkable roles at his college, off-off-Broadway, and off-Broadway stages: Oedipus, Hamlet, Prospero, and Oberon, to name a few. He is committed to spreading his Black Boy Joy throughout the country and the world.
Lee Palmer
Narrator
Lee makes his Detroit Public Theatre debut. A veteran actor whose career has taken him all over the map, Lee recently appeared as the Narrator in Passing Strange at Salt Lake Acting Company and is thrilled to revisit this compelling piece. Other select credits include Jitney (Congo Square Theatre—Jeff Award nomination, Black Excellence Award winner); The Full Monty, Newsies, Once on this Island (Skylight Music Theatre); Miss You Like Hell (TheatreSquared); The Whipping Man (Fulton Theatre); A Murder is Announced, Ghost The Musical (Peninsula Players); Julius Caesar, Taming of the Shrew, The Seagull (Michigan Shakespeare Festival); Two Trains Running (Goodman Theatre); To Kill a Mockingbird, Williams & Walker, Psychedelic Sundae, Benito Cereno (Milwaukee Repertory Theater); Race, microcrisis, Perfect Mendacity, The Exonerated (Next Act Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Actors Theatre of Louisville); and Five Guys Named Moe (Tour and Mill Mountain Theatre). Primetime television: Empire (FOX) and Chicago Fire (NBC). Feature films: Small Town Wisconsin, Olympia, and Spike Lee’s CHI-RAQ. Proud member of Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA.
Monica Palmer
Mother
Monica is a native Detroiter. Actors Equity member. She is a graduate of Cass Technical High School. She received her BFA in Theatre from Wayne State University, and MFA in Theatre from Cornell University. Credits include: The Lion King National Tour, Oo-Bla-Dee directed by Ruben Santago-Hudson and written by Regina Taylor, Menopause the Musical, produced by G4 Productions, Sistas the Musical at the Meadowbrook Theatre and also Off-Broadway in NYC. Monica has traveled nationally and internationally, enjoying performing for audiences around the world. Yet, her greatest joy is to perform in her hometown for her loving and supportive family and making her debut on the DPT stage.
Ben Will
Mr. Franklin, Joop, Mr. Venus
Ben is a Black singer/songwriter, poet, spoken word artist, community organizer, and actor native to Detroit. As an ambassador with the US Department of State, (or the coolest dude in the room at any diplomatic function), Ben recently partnered with the US Embassy Belgium for a musical mental health tour as lead singer of The Ben Will Band. As a poet, Ben was lauded as the 2022 Motown Mic Spoken Word Artist of the Year, a 2022 Poetry Foundation Equity in Verse recipient, and opened for New York Times bestselling author Rupi Kaur. Ben serves as executive director of Motor City Sings, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that uses music to remove stigma from suicide prevention for Black Detroiters. Ben’s acting was last seen in the 2017 critically acclaimed world premiere of James Armstrong’s Capital at the Detroit Repertory Theatre. Outside of his art and activism, Ben is also the single father of a disgruntled domestic shorthair cat: Sir Brixton Black Lives Matter Alexander Cattington Williams Theee First.
Samara Naier
Sherry, Renata, Sudabey
Samara Naier is a singer/songwriter, voice-over artist, and theatre actress based out of Detroit who performed the role of Lutiebelle in the Off-Broadway adaptation of Purlie. She was a lead performer in the Off-Broadway musical revue Smokey Joe’s Cafe, and she worked with the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, playing Wanda Young of The Marvelettes in Now That I Can Dance: Motown 1962, a story based on The Marvelettes and Motown’s early days written by Mosaic’s founder, Rick Sperling. Samara studied with the founder/artistic director of Tectonic Theater Project and award-winning director and playwright Moises Kaufman in New York City, focusing on Moment Work, and has been acting for over 30 years. She is thrilled to be back on stage after taking a break to focus on her singing and an acting career in film/TV.
Meet The Creative Team
John Sloan III
Director
Brian Buckner
Music Director
Carollette Phillips
Choreographer
Monika Essen
Scenic Design
Kwame Wells
Lighting Design
Reyana Patterson
Costume Design
Lumumba Reynolds
Sound Design
Reyanna Patterson
Props Design
Doran Konja
Stage Manager
Chris Corporandy
Dialect
Jalise Little
Sound Board Operator
Owen Zabor
Light Board Operator
Badriyyah Wazeerud-Din
Assistant Stage Manager
Katie Grace
Assistant Production Manager
