Commercial - Dahlak Brathwaite · Tempe · Apr 3, 2027

This is the true story: ?In my hometown, Sacramento (CA), two policemen fatally shot an unarmed Black man, Stephon Clark, in his grandparents backyard. When the news broke, I was confident that I was somehow linked to Stephon. Instead, I learned that my childhood friend was one of the cops who shot him.? ? Dahlak Brathwaite This is COMMERCIAL. Based on a true story and yet, not committed to it, COMMERCIAL is an imaginative blend of autobiography, metadrama, and alternative history. Marquise Johnson is an avatar for the playwright whose artistic principles are confronted upon learning that his childhood friend was one of the officers involved in the shooting of Stephon Clark. A play within a play unfolds as Marquise attempts to process the news through his art, beginning as an earnest, poetic meditation on his complicated connection to this hometown shooting.