TRY/STEP/TRIP Premieres as Part of the Under the Radar Festival

Dahlak Brathwaite’s new hip hop concept musical, Try/Step/Trip, choreographed by Toran Moore, directed by Roberta Uno will come to the Under the Radar Festival. Try/Step/Trip, will play a four-week limited engagement at The Jeffery and Paula Gural Theatre A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 W. 53rd Street New York, NY 10019.) Performances begin Thursday, January 8th, and continue through Sunday, January 25th. Opening Night is Saturday, January 10th, 2026 (8:30pm.) ​ 

Inspired by Brathwaite’s own history, TRY/STEP/TRIP is a rite of passage orchestrated to save one of the justice system’s newest inductees from the ultimate plight of criminalization. Try/Step/Trip is a high-powered theatrical mixtape that fuses spoken word, hip-hop, step, and ritual to tell the story of “Anonymous,” a young Black man navigating a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program and the larger systems shaping his identity. Guided and provoked by “The Conductor” and a chorus of fellow participants, Anonymous is pushed through memories, music, and mythologies that reveal the tension between who he is, who he’s told to be, and who he wants to become. As the group’s movement and storytelling intensify, from confessional meetings to ecstatic club nights to reimagined church rituals, the piece unravels the cycles of punishment, performance, and possibility embedded in America’s criminal justice and cultural narratives.

Try/Step/Trip becomes a live excavation of Blackness, transformation, and the struggle to find freedom within and beyond the systems determined to define you. 

"The act of speaking back against my shame has liberated me, and I want everyone to have that experience - of not letting the things that shame you, silence you" - Dahlak Brathwaite, playwright 

The production stars Tyrese Shawn Avery (Long Way Down - Olney Theatre Center), Dahlak Brathwaite, Jasmine Gatewood, Max Katz, Richard Perez Jr., Freddy Ramsey, Jr., Krystal Renee (Stomp -Off Broadway, World Tour), and Dante Rossi.