Photo Flash: In Rehearsal for TOAST at the Public, Starring Keith David, Hill Harper & More

TOAST begins performances Tuesday, April 21 and runs through Sunday, May 10, with an official press opening on Tuesday, May 5. Check out a first look at the cast in rehearsal below!

TOAST is an electrifying new play by acclaimed spoken word artist and Tony Award-winning writer Lemon Andersen, directed by Andersen's County of Kings collaborator Elise Thoron. A Public Theater commission first presented at The Public's Under the Radar Festival, TOAST ingeniously weaves major characters from black oral narratives into a gripping story about a group of inmates fighting to keep their minds free amidst the 1971 riots that rocked Attica Prison. After 27 years served for murder in Attica's D-Block, Willie Green, aka the legendary Dolomite, has become an unlikely father figure to his cellmates, folklore heroes like Jesse James, Hobo Ben, Annabelle Jones, Stackolee and Hard Rock. When word brews throughout Attica that a riot is coming, Dolomite has to decide whether to join in or bet on the quickly approaching chance to taste freedom. Honoring the spoken word narratives recited in pool halls, bars and prisons across America by generations of black poets, TOAST is a stunning new play about men trying to live free in a system-and a world-designed to keep them chained.

The complete cast for TOAST features Phillip James Brannon (Annabelle Jones), Dan Butler (Sheriff Jody), Teddy Cañez (G.I. Joe),Keith David (Dolomite), Hill Harper (Hard Rock), John Earl Jelks (Stackolee), Jonathan Earl Peck (Hobo Ben), and Armando Riesco (Jesse James).

Photos by Tammy Shell