Patrese McClain

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

Nearly a decade after occupation by an extraterrestrial force, the lives of a Chicago neighborhood on both sides of the conflict are explored. In a working-class Chicago neighborhood occupied by an alien force for nine years, increased surveillance and the restriction of civil rights have given rise to an authoritarian system -- and dissent among the populace.

When the last factory in a small Rust Belt town closes its doors, an unlikely hero emerges in dutiful, quiet Allery Parkes. A career employee of the factory, the aging Allery can't reconcile how to live a life simply sitting at home doing nothing. Against the advice and pleas of his loving wife Iola, he forms an unlikely friendship with his charismatic neighbor Walter Brewer in order to revive the defunct factory.

The reappearance of an old flame puts a district attorney's career in jeopardy.

Three monologues adapted from the groundbreaking book, Black Women in White America, edited by Gerda Lerner.