This rock musical based in downtown L.A. was filmed by Spike Lee, but never produced here, until now

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Set us as preferred Twenty years after its world premiere in Northern California — and subsequent success on Broadway and in London — “Passing Strange,” the quintessential L.A.coming-of-age musical, is finally arriving in Southern California, staging its long-awaited area premiere at Pasadena Playhouse on Sunday.Exactly why it has taken so long for this acclaimed, Tony Award-winning show — much of it set in the heart of Los Angeles — to come here is something its creators, the artist and singer-songwriter, Stew, and Heidi Rodewald (along with this writer) have been scrutinizing since 2009, the year after it opened to critical acclaim on Broadway.“Passing Strange” tells the story of a young, artistic “Youth” (that’s actually his name in the show) who rejects his single mother and the “Black, middle class dream” of 1970s Los Angeles in favor of leaving home to find “The Real,” an elusive state of mind and authenticity he craves.The reasons “The Real” took so long to land in its hometown began to make sense during a recent group Zoom with the “Passing Strange” brain trust, including Stew, Rodewald and its new director Zhalion Levingston.“At my age, at this point, I think it is absolute poetry that this gentleman [Levingston] is the one who brings it to our hometown,” said Stew, pointing to a serendipity of timing.Levingston is the 32-year-old theatrical wunderkind who won this year’s Tony Award for best director, for the groundbreaking revival of “Cats” on Broadway by re-imagining the long-running ‘80s smash as a ballroom drag competition.Getting Levingston to do this revival of “Passing Strange” as his immediate follow-up to “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” is a coup for Pasadena Playhouse’s Artistic Director Danny Feldman.

Feldman calls Levingston a rare talent, who’s “...