This is the true story: In playwright Dahlak Brathwaite's hometown, Sacramento, two policemen fatally shot an unarmed Black man, Stephon Clark, in his grandparents' backyard. When the news broke, he was sure that he was somehow linked to Stephon. Instead, he learned that his childhood friend was one of the cops who shot him. Based on a true story, COMMERCIAL is an imaginative blend of autobiography, metadrama, and alternative history. Marquise Johnson is the playwright’s avatar whose principles and artistic integrity are tested by his connection to 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 this moral dilemma. As media coverage wanes and the movement for Black lives becomes dormant once again, Marquise plots to capture the attention of a national audience, manifesting a real-life sensational drama - interrupted progressively by intrusive commercial segments.
