Stew & The Negro Problem

Thursday, February 14 thru Tuesday, February 19, 2019

In Spring 2019, Tony Award-winning playwright and singer Stew comes to Duke with his new song cycle Notes of a Native Song — written for Harlem Stage’s James Baldwin centenary celebration and named after Baldwin’s 1955 collection of essays on being black in America, Notes of a Native Son. Through an infectious mix of rock, jazz, and soul, Stew and his band the Negro Problem use Baldwin’s work to examine our lingering civil rights woes, reaffirming Baldwin’s status as an essential American thinker and personality.

On the heels of performances at Duke’s von der Heyden Studio Theater (Thursday, February 14 – Sunday, February 18), Stew will participate in two days of residency, including a free public conversation at The Pinhook in downtown Durham and a variety of campus engagements with students and faculty in the departments of English, Music, and African and African American Studies.