Coleman's COMMITTED to be Presented at Broom Street Theatre

Playing April 17 through May 3, Broom Street Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin will present Committed, a gripping new play by Coleman, a harrowing true story of resistance and repression in segregated 1960s Oklahoma. Blending personal memory with documented history, the play examines how racism, religion, and political power converged to silence a woman who dared to challenge the status quo-and the son who must live with the consequences. Committed will be directed by Madison director Matt Korda and features veteran performer Sam White.

Told through the recollections of Joe Gilchrist as an older man, Committed revisits the moment when his mother, Rosie, a white civil-rights activist disfigured by a catastrophic fire, is forcibly institutionalized after attempting to sell her home to a Black family. As Rosie becomes involved with the NAACP Youth Council and local desegregation efforts, she draws the attention of church leaders, police, and city officials who quietly conspire to remove her. Manipulated by those same authorities, Joe makes a devastating choice that leads to his mother's indefinite commitment to a state mental hospital.

Spanning the civil-rights movement and the shadow of the Vietnam War, Committed exposes the everyday mechanisms of injustice-how "respectability," religion, and law were weaponized against dissent-and explores the lasting personal toll of fear, guilt, and delayed courage.