Put out of his swamp solitude by a wicked tyrant's order, grumpy ogre Shrek goes on a journey – accompanied by a chatterbox donkey – to retrieve a beautiful princess from a tower, unaware that she has secrets all her own.

From Los Angeles to Amsterdam to Berlin and back, Passing Strange takes musical theater on a whole new trip. From singer-songwriter and performance artist Stew comes Passing Strange, a daring new musical that takes you on a journey across boundaries of place, identity and theatrical convention. Stew, a popular performer at Joe's Pub, was commissioned by The Public Theater of New York to develop this heartfelt and hilarious story of a young bohemian who charts a course for “the real” through sex, drugs and rock and roll. Loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion, the show takes us from black, middle-class America to Amsterdam, Berlin and beyond on a journey towards personal and artistic authenticity.

When his mom deposits him at the Red Hook housing project in Brooklyn to spend the summer with the grandfather he’s never met, young Flik may as well have landed on Mars. Fresh from his cushy life in Atlanta, he’s bored and friendless, and his strict grandfather, Enoch, a firebrand preacher, is bent on getting him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Only Chazz, the feisty girl from church, provides a diversion from the drudgery. As hot summer simmers and Sunday mornings brim with Enoch’s operatic sermons, things turn anything but dull as people’s conflicting agendas collide.