Mark Stewart (born 1961), known by his stage name Stew, is a singer/songwriter/playwright from Los Angeles. In the early 1990s, he formed a band called The Negro Problem and later went on to release albums under his own name. His 2000 release Guest Host was named Album of the Year by Entertainment Weekly and his 2002 album, The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs, repeated that feat. He toured in support of Love's Arthur Lee in 2002 and in 2003 he was invited to take part in the Lincoln Center's American Songbook series of concerts.
Starting in 2004, he began writing the book, lyrics and music (with Heidi Rodewald) for his semi-autobiographical rock musical Passing Strange, produced with the support of the Sundance Institute and The Public Theater, which won him the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics. In 2005, he wrote and performed "Gary's Song" for the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Have You Seen This Snail? (Where's Gary?)". In 2006, he and Rodewald continued to produce Passing Strange as well as working on a film project with The Sundance Institute. Passing Strange had successful runs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California, in the fall of 2006, and off-Broadway at The Public Theatre in New York City during the spring of 2007. It received critical praise from both the New York Times and Variety and opened on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre in February 2008 under the aegis of producer Liz McCann and the Shubert Organization. The play garnered seven Tony nominations in 2008, with Stew receiving four nominations and winning the award for Best Book. The play closed in July 2008, with Spike Lee filming the final performances for a feature film which screened at the Sundance Festival in January 2009.
Plot
Set within the walls of the trendiest Chicago restaurants and behind the closed doors of dinner parties, Open Tables explores colliding stories of love lost, love found and all the details between. The ensemble characters - friends and acquaintances navigating through blind dates, missed connections and odd encounters - come together over dinner with a number of ulterior motives. Sam and Kate host in hopes that sparks will fly between Kate's younger, idealistic sister Cassie and their shy friend Ryan. Joining them at the table is Jon and Dana, a couple whose seemingly perfect relationship is anything but.
Every table has a story
Plot
Wallowing in debt, Billy enrolls in a clinical drug trial to make a quick buck. Why not? Carted out of NYC on a bus full of oddballs, he and the rest of the "Normals," are tagged, prodded and poked to hilarious results. A FilmBuff Presentation.
Plot
She wants to be part of keeping the world around, without joining the group that's been putting it down. He just wants to make her laugh. 'Dollars and Sense' is an everyday conversation between Cary and Stew. The audience is invited on their short routine walk to listen in on a conversation that's so identifiable yet incredibly intimate, it's almost ethereal.
Keywords: alternative, experimental, independent-film
Plot
Momma Berry's Veggie Soda Shop, on the Veggie side of town has been awarded every year for its amazing "soyshakes" and meatless meals. This year, however, Berry, the owner's daughter (and the awkward and shy one of the group) has been receiving a large quantity of meat baskets every night, baskets which she has had to hide from everyone in town. It all comes to worse, when the secret admirer turns out to be the mysterious boy working in the meat shop across the street, on the meat-eating side of town; and when a milk bottle finds its way into the veggie shop creating the feared "meatshake".
Keywords: butcher, cherry, choreography, dance, meat, milk, milkshake, schizophrenic, soda-shop, soy
A town is shaken up when two lovers "MEAT"...
Momma Berry: There is nothing dirtier than a meatshake. Filthier, fattier, than a cheap steak. Do you want fat chunks clogging your veins?
Stew: Here take a sip.::Berry: It's warm. What is it?::Stew: It's milk.::Berry: Milk? Momma gave papa some milk once when he was choking.::Stew: Did he like it?::Berry: He died. He was lactose intolerant. She sued the meat company after that.
Stew: I - I don't know what a milkshake is.
One man could lead this team to glory. . . That man was busy
All his life Phil Weston has dreamed of being on a winning team. Phil... your time has come.
Phil Weston: I was born a baby, a blank slate. I thought I was in control of my own destiny, and then I met my dad.
Phil Weston: You're my assistant. You're supposed to back me up and go get me juiceboxes whenever I want. Now go get me a juicebox!::Mike Ditka: DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO?::Phil Weston: I'm talkin' to the juicebox guy!::Mike Ditka: You're crazy!::Phil Weston: I'm not crazy, I'm just thirsty!::Mike Ditka: OH, YOU GO TO HELL!::Phil Weston: No, you go to hell, and while you're there, why don't you grab me a juicebox!
Phil Weston: What is that haunting aroma?
Mike Ditka: Way to go, Bing Bong!
Ann Hogan: Hi, Mr.Ditka. I was wondering - my son byong-sun is a little shy, so could I get an autograph?::Mike Ditka: Yeah, sure, how do you spell it?::Ann Hogan: B-Y-...::Mike Ditka: I think I got it. [gives paper]::Donna Jones: [walking away looking at autograph] Bing-bong?
Mike Ditka: [team is doing push-ups] If you guys were the Bears, I'd fine you $10,000 apiece.
Phil Weston: I am angry. I'm like a large tornado of anger, swirling about.
Buck Weston: I take a vitamin everyday. It's called a steak.
Phil Weston: Hey, I almost had you!::Buck Weston: What do you call that again, when you almost win? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah... Losing!
Phil Weston: Ambrose::Ambrose: Yeah?::Phil Weston: I saw a bunch of nonsense out there. What was going through your head out there last week?::Ambrose: I was breaking my back for you coach because of my love for the game.::Phil Weston: LIAR!
Plot
An independent film about a guy, Steven (who happens to be gay), who's ex-girlfriend from high school, Nancy, shows up with a surprise, their 10 year old son Luke! Nancy never told Steven that she got pregnant on prom night with his child (the only girl Steven ever slept with by the way). Nancy has reappeared in Steven's life dying of cancer. She informs Steven that her last wish is to have him "the natural father" adopt Luke. WOW what a blow for a guy who is in a relationship with another guy and neither one of them have a clue on how to raise a 10 year old kid! After many talks with his boyfriend Peter, Steven decides that he will make Nancy's dieing wish come true, but NOT without a little CRASH COURSE FIRST!
Plot
Nathaniel Pickman Wingate has opened a gateway to another dimension using equations and equipment in his basement laboratory. His wife, Nancy, wants him to get ready for his own birthday party. He wants his son Sam to help him. Sam is up in his room looking at pictures of Jasmine on his computer, and a poster of her arrives which he puts in his closet. Although it is Nathan's birthday, the family is enthralled by a visit from Cousin Desmon, who is now a count in Liechtenstein. While Sam is away getting equipment for his father with his friend Alex, his father gets sucked into the other dimension, and a creature from the parallel universe escapes, pursued by another. The first temporarily traps the second with its spit, attacks Desmon, and becomes a duplicate, absorning his thoughts from the unconscious body. The other manages to get free, and unable to find a human to mimic, finds the poster of Jasmine, and becomes her. Sam soon finds her, and becomes his new girlfriend, but she has to find the false Desmon and take him back to their dimension to keep him from harming himself or Sam's family. Sam's sister Linda ("Lindy") is obsessed with talking on the phone, and can neither spell "Desmon" (she spells it "Dezmon") or Chameleon (she spells it "Kamillion", hence the title), what Nathan called the creatures on his tape recorder. The false Desmon drives away Emma the French maid, and plays childish, seemingly deadly pranks on the rest of the family: Angelica, a slut who owns half the house, Larry, a minister, supposedly born again, but badly sinning, and Floyd, a mechanic. Both chameleons try to figure out the ways of the new dimension, while Desmon finds new ways to make mischief, but I can't give away why. Meanwhile, everyone is operating on Nathan's belief that after the four hours of coolant runs out, half the planet will be blown away.
Keywords: alternative-reality, eccentric, family-relationships, gazebo, genital-monster, independent-film, liechtenstein, scientist, surprise-ending, surrealism
Sam's babysitter is out of this world. Jasmine's world is out of this universe. No wonder everyone is feeling alien-ated.
Count Desmon Is Coming. Be Happy. But Worry.
Delightfully Devilish. Definitely Deadly!
Plot
In order to improve his standing with Black voters, a White Senator starts a campaign for the CIA to recruit Black agents. However, all are graded on a curve and doomed to fail, save for a soft-spoken veteran named Dan Freeman. After grueling training in guerrilla warfare, clandestine operations and unarmed combat, he is assigned a meager job as the CIA's token Black employee. After five years of racist and stereotyped treatment by his superiors, he quietly resigns to return to his native Chicago to work for a social services agency...by day. By night, he trains a street gang to be the vanguard in an upcoming race war, using all that the CIA has taught him...
Keywords: african-american, based-on-novel, black-power, blaxploitation, chicago-illinois, cia, civil-unrest, civil-war, ghetto, inner-city
The controversial best selling novel now becomes a shocking screen reality.
He turned the American dream... into a nightmare!
Their first mistake was letting him in. Their biggest mistake was letting him out!
Dan Freeman: You have just played out the American dream... and now, we're gonna turn it into a nightmare.
Dan Freeman: [confronting members of the Cobras street gang] Shut up... and listen! The big-time, bad-ass Cobras. Pumpin' away at the Pigs from the rooftops during the riots last summer? Oh, yeah! I know what ya's into. With .22 rifles and pistols did about as much damage as a mosquito to a elephant's ass! What did you expect to hit from that range, with those weapons at night? You might as well as *thrown* the damned pieces at the Pigs! You *really* wanna mess with Whitey? I can show you how. *I* can show you how!
[after being told he and the other light-skinned gang members are to rob a bank]::Pretty Willie: All the yellow nigga's, right?::[His anger coming to a slow boil]::Pretty Willie: Look, man, I am TIRED of that! I am not passing! I am BLACK! Do you hear me, man? Do you understand? I am BLACK! I am a NIGGA', you understand me? I was BORN Black, I -LIVE- Black, and I'm gonna die, prob'ly -BECAUSE- I'm Black, because some Cracker that -KNOWS- I'm Black, better than -YOU-, Nigga', is prob'ly gonna put a BULLET in the back of my head!
National Guard Soldier: [after being shot] Why me?::Stud Davis: Cause it's WAR, Honky!
The naked Dutch painter does not want to fuck you
She’s got 17 boyfriends and an eight o’clock class to get to
She’s smoking hash all night with some coffee amaretto
She’s asking stupid questions about my groovy black ghetto
And the naked Dutch painter in the kitchen does not want to fuck you.
The naked Dutch painter in your bed does not want to sleep with you
She just feels like being naked
You don’t think you can take it but they’re next to you
She says, “Ghandi used to sleep next to two naked women”
But you’re not the Mahatma and that’s a whole ‘nother religion
And the naked Dutch painter in the bed does want to sleep with you
The naked Dutch painter in the morning does not want to need you
She missed her eight o’clock class cause she couldn’t get her ass up off of you
So you walk along the Rhine and jump back in the sack
If this is how they do it you ain’t never going back
And the naked Dutch painter in the morning does not want to need you
Talking ‘bout the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa
The naked Dutch painter in the gallery does not want to love you
She’s throwing fluorescent paint accompanied by a Mingus tape that she stole from you
Its performance art porno under trippy black light
She left with her professor, he can stretch her canvas tight
And the naked Dutch painter in the gallery does not want to love you.
The naked Dutch painter in his arms does not want to see you
You are drunk and you are sore
You busted down professor’s door but he feels for you
So a wicked joint is rolled and mellows out your head
But you’re not feeling too bold when he invites you into bed
While the naked Dutch painter in his arms does not want to see you
Talking ‘bout the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa
So now you’re on your own in a freezing pay phone around day break
You’re feeling so shitty that your calling Culver City just to belly ache
But there’s no body home ‘cept your answering machine
So you write a stupid poem about the freaky shit you’ve seen
Like the naked Dutch painter in the morning sky who hovers above you
The naked Dutch painter at your door says she finally loves you
But she said “I’ll see you later” when she saw another naked painter sitting in the kitchen with you
Well she seemed a little shattered and she got a little pissed
When she saw that you were flattered by the fact that you’d been missed
While the naked Dutch painter at your door says....
Talking ‘bout the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
the naked Dutch painter
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa