Aaron Braxton

Broken Aaron Braxton

Mental illness does not discriminate based on race, color, gender or identity. Anyone can experience the challenges of mental illness regardless of their background. However, how you understand and cope with these conditions are very different in African American communities. Because mental health is seen as a sign of weakness and judgement in African American Communities, many people suffer in silence.

BROKEN is a witty, Two-Act Play centered around the stigma of mental illness in a typical African American family, where the painful, personal experiences of a woman rejecting psychological help, suffers drug and alcohol addiction as well as extreme visual and auditory hallucinations. All while vigorously attempting to rectify her own sorrow.

Winner of the Max K. Lerner Fellowship Award, BROKEN examines what transpires when families do not know how to fully support each other when dealing with severe mental health trauma. It explores pathological guilt and addiction as a byproduct of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).