HEAVENLY SUNLIGHT takes place in 1984 in the home of a middle-class black family from Haines, Illinois, on the occasion of Calvin (Cal) Thorne’s thirty-fifth birthday. Family pathology is the underlying theme: the ideological brick wall that separates Ben and Cal (father and son); the enabling of Lily toward Cal (mother and son) and her unspoken dread; Jean’s pressure to be the perfect daughter; and Ben’s feeling of invisibility. With the arrival of relatives, the Thomases – Miriam, Ben’s older sister; Abe, Miriam’s conservative husband; and Harris, their son who is on the spectrum – comes competitiveness, resentments, the gay baiting of Cal, and a well-kept family secret. It is a play about dreams deferred, moments missed and great expectations.