Try/Step/Trip: A Hip-Hop Ritual of Reckoning, Release, and Black Becoming
As part of the 2026 Under the Radar Festival, Try/Step/Trip arrives Off-Broadway not merely as a musical, but as a visceral, embodied reckoning. Written by award-winning dramatic auteur Dahlak Brathwaite,fresh off his Helen Hayes Award win for Long Way Down, this new hip-hop concept musical transforms the stage into a living ceremony of truth-telling, movement, and liberation.
Presented by The Living Word Project and staged at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at ART/NY, Try/Step/Trip unfolds over 85 uninterrupted minutes that refuse passivity. There is no intermission because there is no pause from the systems the work interrogates.
Inspired by Brathwaite’s own lived history, Try/Step/Trip centers on “Anonymous,” a young Black man navigating a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program. But what unfolds is far more than a linear narrative. Guided and at times provoked by The Conductor and a chorus of fellow participants, Anonymous is pushed through memory, myth, ritual, and rhythm. Spoken word, hip-hop, step, and movement collide to form what feels like a theatrical mixtape, each track peeling back another layer of identity shaped by surveillance, shame, and survival.
Under the direction of Roberta Uno, whose legacy includes being the last theater director to work directly with James Baldwin, the piece carries a spiritual and political weight that feels intentional and urgent. Choreographed by Toran Moore, the movement is not ornamental—it is confrontational. Bodies confess. Bodies resist. Bodies remember. From confessional rehab meetings to ecstatic club scenes to reimagined church rituals, the ensemble pushes the audience through cycles of punishment, performance, and possibility embedded within America’s criminal justice system.
What makes Try/Step/Trip especially compelling is its refusal to simplify the Black experience. It is not didactic, nor does it offer a neat resolution. Instead, it excavates—asking what it means to seek freedom within systems designed to define, discipline, and diminish. As Brathwaite himself notes, “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.”
The ensemble cast, including Tyrese Shawn Avery, Jasmine Gatewood, Krystal Renee, Freddy Ramsey Jr., Max Katz, Richard Perez Jr., Dante Rossi, and Brathwaite himself, delivers performances that feel raw, urgent, and deeply human. Their collective energy fuels a production that critics have already deemed “essential wartime viewing,” with praise echoing from voices like Roger Guenvere-Smith and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kristina Wong.
Technically, the production is equally sharp. Sim Carpenter’s lighting design sculpts the emotional arc of the piece, while Saida Joshua-Smith’s sound engineering ensures that every word, beat, and breath lands with intention. Together, they amplify the sense that this is not simply a show to be watched—it is an experience to be felt.
At its core, Try/Step/Trip is a live excavation of Blackness, transformation, and becoming. It is about confronting shame, reclaiming narrative, and imagining freedom beyond imposed scripts. In a cultural moment where conversations about justice, masculinity, and Black interiority are often flattened or commodified, this production dares to sit in complexity.
This is not escapist theater. It is confrontational, poetic, and necessary.
Try/Step/Trip runs January 8–25, 2026, as a limited engagement at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at ART/NY. Tickets begin at $35. For those seeking theater that moves beyond spectacle into truth, this is required viewing.
Photo credits: Kampfire films pr.