THE STORY: The final play in Ike Holter’s Rightlynd saga. LOTTERY DAY finds the matriarch of the neighborhood, Mallory, throwing a blowout party that brings together many of the characters from previous plays in the series. As Mallory reveals that her newly created holiday, Lottery Day, is the cause for celebration, the group discovers that their ties to each other, the community they love, and even their own morals get tested in ways that they could never expect: What is the price of gentrification? What is the price of letting go? And does everyone have a price?
“It may sound like an overreach to compare Holter’s hip, seven-play Chicago opus to August Wilson’s famed cycle of work about African-American life…But in the years since Wilson’s death, Holter’s Rightlynd Cycle is the closest to Wilson’s achievement, in form, poetic resonance and socio-political worldview, that I’ve seen any dramatic writer come…Holter is a natural poet of cascading resonances.” —Chicago Tribune.
“A trademark of Holter’s style is how nimbly he telescopes between the broad themes and sophisticated nuances of his subjects. LOTTERY DAY is at once a meditation on personal loss and a community grieving its end…even if one does ‘make it,’ what’s the point of winning if everyone you wanted to share your success with is gone? LOTTERY DAY offers hope on the other side of defeat.” —Chicago Reader.
“Many of the beautifully-written characters may have originated in other plays, but they are fully rounded in this one; Holter is careful to allow each of them to take the focus of the rowdy bash with its loud, overlapping dialogue, music and humor. Nothing here is cheap or unearned…” —Windy City Times.
