By Angie Han/July 15, 2015 10:30 am EST
Parris leads the cast as a woman who battles gun violence in Chicago by going on a sex strike. The rising actress made a big impression on AMC’s Mad Men as one of the show’s few significant characters of color, and was one of four leads in last year’s sharp indie comedy Dear White People (pictured above).
The title refers to the comparison between inner-city Chicago and war-torn Iraq. It’s a somewhat controversial term, as some in the community (including mayor Rahm Emanuel) have protested that it paints them in an unflattering right.
Starring alongside Parris, Bassett, Cusack, and Jackson will be Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, Nick Cannon, D.B. Sweeney, Harry Lennix, and Steve Harris. Lee wrote the script with Kevin Willmott. It’s described as being in a “lyrical” style like Shakespeare, which seems to explain earlier reports that Chi-Raq would be a musical.
