TRY/STEP/TRIP

"An intricate pattern of words and music, stomping and clapping. ...everything is in service of the story."

Brian Seibert, The New York Times

Try/Step/Trip is a concept musical performed in the body through the choreographic language of step. The story follows the journey of a music man as he re-imagines his experience in a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program. 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: to be remade in the image of its judgment. World views are delivered within musical numbers, ancestors are conjured through step, and archetypes are sampled from pop culture and folklore, all to guide a familiar young Black man in his unique search for redemption and self-definition.

Note: This show uses strong language and references struggles with addiction.

Ages 13+

Dahlak Brathwaite (Writer/Composer/Performer) is an award-winning dramatic auteur: playwright, composer, performer, director, and filmmaker. His work has been presented at The Smithsonian, The Wallis, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, REDCAT, MCA Chicago, Ars Nova, The Public Theater, The Apollo, SXSW, and on HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Dahlak’s trilogy of works – Spiritrials (solo play), Try/Step/Trip (musical), Adapting History (documentary film) – takes a personal look into the criminal justice system and the relationship between Black American music and Black American subjugation. Development of the work has been supported by CalArts, A.C.T., Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Montalvo Arts Center. Dahlak is a Princess Grace Award winner. He has received awards and support from NEFA, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Black Genius Foundation, Creative Capital, MAP Fund, California Arts Council, and has taught workshops internationally as a two-time fellow of the U.S. State Department. He was The York Theatre’s inaugural Micki Grant Artist-in-Residence and a member of The Public Theater’s 2023 Devised Theater Working Group cohort. His musical adaptation of Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down premiered at Olney Theater Center, broke box-office records, and won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Musical. Dahlak is a graduate of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, where he was awarded the Dean’s Full-Tuition Fellowship, and served as the Assistant Director for the national tour of the Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma. He has been a visiting professor at UC Davis and is currently part-time faculty at Berklee College of Music.

Roberta Uno (Director) is a theater director and dramaturg. She founded and was Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater 1979-2002 in Amherst, MA. Her numerous directing credits include The Dance and the Railroad by David Henry Hwang, Clothes by Chitra Divakaruni, Unmerciful Good Fortune by Edwin Sanchez, Flyin’ West by Pearl Cleage, Stop Kiss by Diana Son, Sneaky by William Yellow Robe, Sheila’s Day by Duma Ndlovu, I Land by Keo Woolford, the bodies between us by thuy le, and the musical theater concert Bone Hill, co-written with and composed by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby. She was the last theater director to work directly with James Baldwin; directing Blues for Mr. Charlie and as a dramaturg she has spanned generations working with Pearl Primus, Alice Childress, Sekou Sundiata, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Crystal Truscott, Dionna Daniel and others. She directed a large-scale devised theatre work, We the Peoples Before at the Kennedy Center July 2022, a multi-year commission celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the First Peoples Fund. She is also currently directing Waihona Kino (Body Archive) featuring Peter Tau Espiritu, which will premiere September 2026 at Leeward Theatre, O’ahu.

Toran Xavier Moore (choreographer) is a southern native/LA creative who can often be found as an Arts Administrator, Stage Manager, Producer, and Choreographer. As a dance artist, Moore’s career highlights include performing with the Eclectic Dance Company, sharing his step tradition with youth in Oahu at the Queen Lili‘uokalani Trust’s ʻŌlino Arts Program, and Lead Choreographer (Try/Step/Trip) and Choreographer with Odyssey Theatre ensemble’s SoCal Premiere of K*ll Move Paradise. As Producer and Creative Manager, Moore has worked in and with theaters internationally, including Terra Kulture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, CalArts Center for New Performance, The Kennedy Center, and many others he’s grateful to have shared space in. When not dancing, Toran serves as the Director of Programs for The International Association of Blacks in Dance. Moore holds degrees from California Institute of the Arts (M.F.A) and Alabama State University (B.A.)

Writer, Composer, Performer
Dahlak Brathwaite

Director
Roberta Uno

Choreographer
Toran X. Moore

Assistant Choreography by
Freddy Ramsey, Jr.

Orchestrations and Additional Compositions by
Teak Underdue

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Host or Publisher Dahlak Brathwaite