On a beautiful summer's day, the villagers gather in their picturesque town square for the annual lottery, a centuries-old tradition. No one knows where or why it originated, but one thing is for sure: the villagers are proud of their tradition. A tradition that comes at the cost of human life.

When Shirley Jackson published her now iconic short story in The New Yorker in 1948, it sparked shock and outrage among the magazine’s post-war readers. Today, The Lottery is being staged for the first time in the German-speaking theatre world.

At the heart of this production is a 1960 recording – one of the few surviving recordings of Shirley Jackson’s voice – in which the author reads her brilliant text in full.