TRY/STEP/TRIP

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.

Appropriate Age Range

Ages 13+

Content Warnings

This show uses strong language and references struggles with addiction.

Artist Bio

Dahlak Brathwaite 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.

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