Art often fails. Writers discard first drafts (and second, third, and fourth). Painters trash early sketches. And even when completed work enters the world, some is transcendent, but much is hopelessly earthbound. Or so I believe, but Heidi Rodewald and Stew, creators of the musical Passing Strange, demur. “I don’t think art is ever wrong,” he says. She concurs, as long as the artist is true to herself. Three of us wrangled amicably, two of us sang wonderfully at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

•  PERSON: Bill Bragin
•  PLACE: Los Angeles
•  THING: this van
•  RANDY’S PLACE: Sun Studios