Shirley Jackson’s Lottery Reimagined in Five Chilling Acts

Introduction

There is nothing particularly unusual about a village square. On a June morning it is filled with sun, dust, and the low hum of neighbors exchanging pleasantries. The children gather as they always do, laughing, running, carrying stones. Their mothers speak of bread and planting; their fathers shift uncomfortably but keep their places in line. Everything is ordinary, and because it is ordinary, it is trusted.

When I wrote The Lottery, some assumed I meant another country, another culture—surely not them. Yet the square was always meant to look familiar, to remind us that violence often hides best in plain sight. Tradition works this way: it appears harmless until it is too deeply rooted to question. By the time someone notices, it is already too late.

This reimagining lingers where the story once stopped. The first stone has already been thrown; the question is not what happens in that moment, but what comes afterward. Do the villagers forget? Do they justify? Do they remember against their will? The aftermath is rarely as sudden as the act itself. It seeps into the ground, into the faces of children, into the hands that learn how to lift stones without trembling.

What follows here is less invention than extension. The ritual continues because no one can imagine life without it. That is the truest horror—not that the lottery happens once, but that it happens again and again, as natural as summer returning each year.

(Note: This play blends an established story with newly imagined scenes. The later acts are original fiction inspired by the spirit of the tale.)

Scene 1 — The Lottery (Opening Act)

Setting: A bright June morning in a small village square. Downstage: a rough wooden three-legged stool; a black wooden box wrapped with twine; a battered clipboard with a pencil tied to it. Upstage: cottages, a church bell that has forgotten what hour it is, a dirt road leading out to the fields. Children drift in first, then adults in work clothes and Sunday best mixed together.

Lights: Clean summer light with a soft gold edge. Heat mirage shimmer over the square as the scene builds. As tension rises, the light cools slightly, flattening shadows.

Sound: Bees, a distant dog, the soft hiss of leaves. Occasional laughter; a cart wheel; then a low, synchronized hush whenever the black box is handled.

Props: Stones—smooth, palm-sized—begin as playthings. By mid-scene they are arranged in small piles at the edge of the square.

Child 1 (calling to others)
Race you to the pile!

Children scatter, scooping stones, weighing them like treasure. A few arrange them methodically; one pockets a particularly round one with shy satisfaction.

Mrs. Dunbar (to another woman, genial)
Plenty warm for June.

Mrs. Delacroix
The corn will be glad of it.

Enter Mr. Summers carrying the black box, followed by Mr. Graves with slips of paper in a wooden tray. The murmuring thins. A few men help set the three-legged stool. The box is placed upon it with ritual care. Someone smirks at the box’s shabby corners, then stares at their boots.

Mr. Summers (practical cheer)
All right, folks. Let’s get this done in good order.

He unties the twine, opens the lid. Inside: a drift of white slips, like small, quiet birds.

Old Man Warner (appearing, leaning on a stick, voice sharp)
Younger every year, the lot of you. Don’t fidget. It goes smoother when we don’t fidget.

A ripple of nervous laughter. Bill Hutchinson arrives, slightly out of breath. Tessie Hutchinson enters moments later, smoothing her apron, calling apologies to neighbors with a bright, too-loud smile.

Tessie
I was washing up and lost track—well, here I am. Don’t start without me.

People make space. Mr. Summers checks the clipboard, calls names; as each family head steps forward, they draw a slip, hold it closed, and step back to their place in the crowd. The children try to crane to see, but are shushed. The sun hums. The box does not.

Mr. Summers
Adams… Allen… Anderson…

Each name is an oar stroke through still water. The rhythm lulls, then tightens. Mr. Summers glances up from time to time, ensuring the pattern holds.

Old Man Warner (to anyone listening)
Heard talk in the north town—fool talk. Giving up the lottery. Planting’s not planting without it. We are not fools.

A few nod, eager to be on the right side of the sentence.

Mr. Summers
Graves… Harbert… Hutchinson.

Bill Hutchinson steps forward. Tessie catches his sleeve.

Tessie (lightly, half-joking to the square)
Make sure he gets a good long look, now. Don’t rush him.

Awkward chuckles. Bill draws his slip; his hand is steady, his eyes not. He returns to Tessie. She pretends to breathe.

Mr. Summers
Warner… Watson… Ziegler.

The last slip taken. An exhale passes through the square like a cloud’s shadow. Mr. Summers lifts a hand.

Mr. Summers
All right then. Open them up.

Papers crackle softly. People glance, then show blank slips to neighbors, relief releasing in murmurs, nervous laughter. A second’s delay where Bill Hutchinson stands very still.

Mrs. Delacroix (peering)
Bill?

Bill’s throat works. He doesn’t raise his paper. Tessie laughs, small and brittle.

Tessie
Oh, Bill—don’t keep them waiting.

Bill opens his slip. A black mark—charcoal or ink—sits in the center like an eye. The sound drops out of the square; even the bees listen.

Mr. Graves (already moving)
Hutchinson family. Step forward, please.

Tessie goes pale, then pink, then determinedly cheerful.

Tessie
It isn’t right to make him draw so fast. He barely had his hand in the box.

Mr. Summers (calm, practiced)
Rules are rules, Tessie. Family head draws first. Now each of you.

He empties the box, places five fresh slips—one marked, four not—inside. Bill, Tessie, their three children are guided to the front. The children look at their mother; she smiles too brightly, like a candle fighting a draft.

Old Man Warner (to the space above their heads)
Seventy-seven years I been through this, never did it harm to say the words right and keep the time of it.

Mr. Summers
Bill, you’ll draw for the boy—he’s not of age. Then Nancy, then little Davey, then Tessie, then Bill.

The order sets like plaster. The box is offered. Bill draws for the youngest, then Nancy steps forward on trembling legs, then Davey is lifted and helped by Mr. Graves—tiny fingers pull a slip while the crowd coos at the sweetness, relieved to focus on anything but the center. Tessie’s smile is gone now. Her hands won’t behave.

Tessie (low, to Mr. Summers)
You could have made the list different. You could have let me draw with the other families.

Mr. Summers
You’re in it, Tessie. Same as everyone.

He holds out the box. Tessie draws. Bill draws last. They return to a small circle within the larger ring of the village. The slips are clenched like damp birds.

Mr. Summers
Open.

Nancy cries out with relief, flashing a blank. The little one’s is blank. Bill’s blank. Tessie stares at her paper, not seeing it until the crowd sees her not seeing it. A murmur collides with silence.

Mrs. Dunbar (soft, horrified)
Oh.

Tessie looks up, mouth open, paper shaking. She steps back, bumping the stool. The box totters, then steadies.

Tessie (voice rising)
It isn’t fair.

No one answers. The words land and lie there like a coat dropped on a chair.

Mr. Summers (to the square, brisk)
Let’s finish quickly.

The tone has changed; it always changes here. Mr. Graves folds the blank slips into the box as if tidying a game. The children who’d been playing with stones look to their parents. Permission, once unspoken, is given with a glance.

Movement begins at the edges: hands selecting stones with the same care used for apples at a market. Mrs. Delacroix picks up one too large, laughs a laugh that breaks, sets it down, chooses a better one. Mr. Adams avoids looking at Tessie as he stoops.

Tessie (to neighbors, to friends)
You saw how he hurried it—Bill didn’t have time—

Old Man Warner (cutting across)
Enough of that. Get on with it.

The circle tightens. Tessie’s children are pulled gently aside. Bill’s face is the color of paper; he does not meet his wife’s eyes. The dog barks in the distance and then does not. A cloud slides over the sun, or perhaps the sun remembers to be merciful and withdraws an inch.

Mrs. Delacroix (to Tessie, almost kindly)
Hold still.

Tessie clutches her slip like a talisman that won’t work. The first stone leaves a small hand—Davey’s—helped by Mr. Graves. It strikes the dust near Tessie’s foot, a rehearsal. The second lands with a dull sound against the stool’s leg. The third finds her shoulder; she stumbles, gasps.

Tessie (not a scream; a statement)
It’s not right.

More stones now, from all sides but never from no one. The villagers’ faces are fixed on the business, brisk and careful, as if tending a fire that must not go out. Nancy turns her face away and still holds a stone. Old Man Warner does not throw immediately; he supervises, nodding at the cadence as if at a hymn done properly.

The sound becomes a weather: thuds, small gasps, the scrape of shoes. Mrs. Dunbar hefts a stone with two hands, falters, and another woman takes it from her with a grateful nod, teamwork intact. Mr. Summers stands with empty hands but a full authority; he will carry the box away later. He always does.

Lights cool further, the square losing its prettiness. The piles diminish. Children fetch more without being told, as if continuing a game. Tessie’s voice threads the noise, frays, threads again.

Tessie
Please—
(It fades to breath.)

At the edge of the square, one stone rolls free, stops against a child’s shoe. The child nudges it back into the ring with a small, dutiful kick.

Gradually the motion in the square steadies, then slows—not because anyone speaks, but because there are fewer stones in hands and more on the ground where they mean to be. The work of it is nearly done; someone coughs; someone else recalls a pot left on a stove. A fly writes its name in the warmed air.

Mr. Summers (quietly, to Mr. Graves)
All right.

Mr. Graves retrieves the box, reties the twine. The three-legged stool is set aside. People avoid the center as they drift back into talk, light as if a button has been sewn back on a coat. The children scatter down the lane, leaving a last small pile of stones like punctuation.

Old Man Warner (exiting)
Right as rain.

Bill Hutchinson stands alone for a beat, then lifts his youngest into his arms and follows the others, his face unarranged. Tessie’s slip—black-marked—lies in the dust, fluttering once, then settling.

Lights hold—not a blackout, but a long blink. Somewhere a church bell tries a note and thinks better of it. The square breathes as if nothing has happened and as if everything has. A single stone, late to its work, tips off the stool and lands with a soft, definitive tap.

Scene 2 — The Aftermath (The Next Day)

Setting: The same village square, but altered by silence. Morning sunlight pours in less warmly than before. The black box is gone, the stool pushed off to the side, almost hidden. The stones remain scattered across the ground, some stained, some glinting innocently in the light. Chickens peck at the edges. The space feels both ordinary and haunted.*

Lights: Washed-out daylight, paler than the previous scene. It exaggerates absence. Long shadows even though the sun is high.

Sound: A cart wheel creaks in the distance. A hammer strikes somewhere, once, then again, ordinary life trying to reassert itself. But in the square, only silence.

Children enter first, kicking through stones half-heartedly. They don’t run or laugh this time. One child, younger, bends to pocket a stone and is pulled back by an older sibling, who shakes their head sharply. The younger one doesn’t ask why.

Child 1 (whispering)
Don’t take it. Leave it.

Child 2(low, muttered)
She’s still here.

The children scatter, leaving the stones untouched. The square empties, then gradually, villagers drift in, baskets in hand, pretending they have business in the square. Their steps slow as they cross the center. They glance at the ground but never stop moving.

Mrs. Delacroix (to Mrs. Dunbar, as though nothing unusual)
Bread rose fine this morning. Better than last week.

Mrs. Dunbar
Mm. The weather holds for the corn.

They speak briskly, eyes on their baskets, never on each other, never on the stones.

Enter Bill Hutchinson with his children. He keeps his head low. Nancy holds Davey’s hand too tightly, as though the child might vanish. A hush passes over the square like a wind. Women murmur greetings, their voices careful, strained.

Mrs. Delacroix (after a pause, too cheerful)
Morning, Bill. Morning, Nancy.

Bill (short, automatic)
Morning.

Tessie’s absence presses into the square like a weight. Neighbors smile brittle smiles at the children, but no one offers to help. A woman shifts her basket to the other arm as if to avoid touching them. The Hutchinson family passes through and exits silently.

Once they’re gone, the villagers resume their muttering, hushed but sharp.

Mrs. Dunbar (to Delacroix)
Always does carry on, Tessie did. Even at the end.

Old Man Warner (emerging, his stick tapping stones aside as he walks)
Nothing but talk. Best she’s gone. The lottery’s kept us safe longer than any of you been alive. Remember that.

He glares until others nod. Then he moves off, muttering about “fools in the north village” again.

The square empties except for a single girl, perhaps ten years old—Eva, Tessie’s daughter from a previous marriage. She kneels at the center of the square, where the largest stains are. She sets down a flower she’s plucked from the roadside, small and ragged, and whispers.

Eva(softly)
They didn’t see you right. I still do.

The air seems to shift. A faint wind moves through, though no trees are near. For a moment, the stones look darker, as though they still remember what they did. Eva stares at them, then at her own small hand.

Eva (to herself, frightened)
I hear you.

She gasps and flees, leaving the flower behind. The wind fades. The square is empty again. A chicken hops up onto the stool, pecking. The stage holds on emptiness until the light dims slowly to black.

Scene 3 — A New Generation (A Few Years Later)

Setting: The same village square, now with small changes. A fence has been repaired, the church bell polished, the stool freshly painted though still rickety. The black box is more battered, its wood flaking at the edges, yet still it sits at the center like an altar. Stones, though cleared after each lottery, seem to gather again, piled neatly by the children as if by instinct.*

Lights: A late spring morning, softer, less golden. A haze in the distance suggests years have passed, but tradition holds the stage firmly in place.

Sound: Laughter of children—louder this time, rougher. The chatter of adults is more anxious, as though rehearsed. A dog barks but doesn’t enter. Somewhere, a crow caws and doesn’t stop.

Children rush in, older than those in Scene 1. They play a game with stones—counting, tossing, arranging into circles. Their movements echo the ritual without conscious intent. Adults enter with a sharper pace, greeting each other with strained smiles. Some glance furtively at the Hutchinson family, now smaller, older.

Bill Hutchinson stands taller, more rigid, his face lined with guilt. Nancy is grown into a young woman, holding Davey’s hand. Eva, Tessie’s eldest, stands apart, eyes shadowed. She does not join the children. The villagers look at her, then look away.

Mr. Summers (entering with box, his cheer thinner)
All right, folks, gather in. Let’s get it done right.

Old Man Warner (louder than before, voice carrying)
Seventy-nine years, and it still keeps us safe. Never mind fools who quit the lottery. You quit it, you quit living right.

The villagers nod, uneasy but obedient. Families draw closer together. The ritual begins again: names called, slips drawn, papers clutched in tight fists.

Bill Hutchinson steps forward for his family. The murmurs thicken. A neighbor mutters under breath.

Mrs. Dunbar (to Mrs. Delacroix)
Not again. Not them.

Mrs. Delacroix (whispering, urgent)
Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.

Bill draws. He stares too long at his slip. His hand shakes. Tessie’s absence vibrates in the silence. The villagers exchange glances. The air grows heavy.

Mr. Summers (pressing)
Bill. Show it.

Bill’s slip carries the black mark. The crowd exhales as if a storm has broken.

Tessie’s Voice (distant, almost a hiss in the wind)
It isn’t fair.

The villagers flinch, though no one speaks of it. Mr. Summers briskly prepares the fresh slips for the family. Nancy, Davey, and Eva step forward with Bill. The crowd murmurs louder than before, unease dripping into their voices.

Eva (cold, to the crowd)
You knew this would happen.

Old Man Warner (snapping back)
It’s the way it’s always been. Don’t you shame your mother’s name now.

Eva (under her breath, fierce)
You shamed her when you killed her.

The family draws. The slips open one by one. Bill’s is blank. Davey’s is blank. Eva’s is blank. Nancy stares at hers. The black mark blooms like a bruise on the paper. She drops it as though burned.

Nancy (weeping, screaming)
No! It isn’t—!

The villagers move quickly, too quickly, as though eager to end it. Stones are lifted before Mr. Summers even gives the word. Mrs. Delacroix looks away but still bends for a rock. The children, practiced by now, pass stones as if in a game. Davey is pulled aside, wailing. Bill does not move to protect Nancy—his face is carved from stone itself.

Nancy (to her father)
Do something! Please—!

Bill turns his face away. Nancy’s cry echoes her mother’s, twisting through the square. The villagers encircle, stones fly. Her voice cuts off, leaving only the thud of rocks against earth and flesh. The silence afterward is heavier than before.

The villagers drift back. Stones lie scattered. Nancy’s slip with the black mark flutters to the ground. Eva steps forward, picks it up, and tucks it into her dress pocket. Her eyes burn with a promise unspoken. She looks at the villagers, one by one, until they look away.

The lights dim slowly, leaving Eva’s silhouette center stage, clutching the marked paper. The sound of the crow returns, closer now, louder, insistent.

Scene 4 — The Rebellion (A Decade Later)

Setting: The same village square, but altered by time and tension. The church bell is cracked and silent. The black box is more decayed, its lid splintering, the wood so fragile it leaves dust on the hands that touch it. Fewer villagers gather than before; families cluster in separate knots. The stones are there, but not arranged neatly—scattered in disorder, as if some villagers no longer trust their weight.*

Lights: Harsh daylight, almost too white, bleaching the stage. No warmth. Shadows fall sharp and angular, like bars.

Sound: Murmuring louder than usual, almost argumentative. A restless wind carries faint echoes, as though voices beyond the living are listening.

Children enter reluctantly, not with laughter but with wariness. Some refuse to pick up stones. Others glance at their parents, uncertain. Adults enter, forming two distinct groups: one around Old Man Warner, rigid and grim; the other around a younger man, Samuel Martin, bold-eyed, fists clenched. The square feels divided before the lottery even begins.

Samuel Martin (to his group)
It’s madness, year after year. Blood doesn’t bring harvest. It only feeds fear.

Old Man Warner (snapping, to the crowd)
You stop your ears against him! It’s talk like his that ruins towns. You want famine? You want sickness? You want the fields to rot?

Mrs. Delacroix (trembling)
We’ve always done it. Always.

Samuel Martin
That doesn’t make it right.

Enter Mr. Summers with the black box. His hands tremble as he sets it on the stool. Splinters fall from it like ash. He tries to summon his usual cheer, but it cracks halfway through.

Mr. Summers
All right… let’s get this done.

The villagers shift uneasily. Samuel Martin steps forward, blocking the box.

Samuel Martin (defiant)
No. Not this year. Not any year again.

Gasps ripple. Children clutch their mothers. Bill Hutchinson, older, hollow-eyed, stands in the crowd with Davey, now nearly grown, and Eva, who never lost her mother’s voice in her head. Eva’s eyes fix on the box, hard and unblinking.

Old Man Warner (furious, pointing his stick)
This is treason! This is death for all of us if we don’t keep faith.

Samuel Martin
Faith? In murder?

The villagers argue, voices overlapping, splitting the stage into chaos. Some cry for tradition, others beg for it to end. The tension rises until Mr. Summers lifts the box, desperate to restore order. Suddenly, the box jolts in his hands. A gust of wind rattles the slips inside though the lid is closed. Papers flutter out as though alive, scattering through the square.

One slip lands on the stool by itself, face up. The black mark glares. Silence falls heavy as stone.

Mrs. Dunbar (horrified whisper)
No one drew…

Mrs. Delacroix (clutching her chest)
The box chose itself.

Old Man Warner (with grim triumph)
You see? Even the box knows better than you rebels.

The villagers recoil, staring at the marked slip glowing faintly in the harsh light. A sound rises—Tessie’s voice, faint but unmistakable, woven through the wind.

Tessie’s Voice
It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.

Eva steps forward, her face pale but resolute. She looks around the crowd, then at the slip on the stool. Her hand hovers above it, trembling.

Eva (to the villagers)
It doesn’t want one of us. It wants all of us.

Gasps. People stumble back. Some scream. Others deny it. Stones lie untouched at their feet, but no one moves to pick them up.

Samuel Martin (to the rebels, urgent)
This is the moment. Smash the box. End it now!

He lunges toward the stool. Old Man Warner thrusts his stick out, blocking him. The two clash violently. The villagers cry out, torn between sides. The slips of paper whirl in the air like a storm of birds, circling the square. The black box rattles on its stool, splitting, its lid cracking open as though it breathes.

Lights flicker between white and dark, as though the square itself is shaking. Shadows of stones, larger than life, dance on the walls behind the villagers.

Tessie’s Voice (louder, echoing, as if from within the box)
It isn’t fair.

Blackout.

Scene 5 — The Final Revelation (Many Years Later)

Setting: The village square, years later. The church bell tower has collapsed, its stones half-buried in weeds. The stool is gone, replaced by a cracked stone pedestal. The black box sits upon it, but it is barely a box now—splintered wood, tied together with wire, dust sifting from its seams. The slips of paper spill from its gaps as if multiplying on their own. Many cottages stand empty. Only a handful of villagers remain, gaunt and watchful.*

Lights: A gray, overcast light blankets the stage. No warmth, no summer glow. Everything looks drained, as if time itself is tired.

Sound: The constant caw of crows, faint whispers like wind pushing through dry reeds. When silence falls, it feels alive.

Enter a stranger—a Historian, carrying a satchel and notebook. He wears clothes of another town, neat and modern. He looks at the ruins with curiosity and unease. A few villagers watch him from the edges: Bill Hutchinson, older and bent, Eva, hardened and silent, and a few nameless townsfolk with wary eyes.

Historian (cheerful, cautious)
I’ve heard stories of this place. That you keep an old custom, older than memory. I’ve come to see it for myself.

The villagers exchange glances, saying nothing. The Historian approaches the pedestal, inspecting the black box. He touches it and draws back—his fingers blackened with dust.

Historian (softly, to himself)
It’s falling apart. Should have crumbled long ago. And yet…

Eva steps forward, voice sharp.

Eva
Don’t touch it.

Historian (surprised)
Why not? Neighboring towns abandoned such rites generations ago. They say it was for crops, or for luck—but here, you still…

He falters at the villagers’ silence. His gaze lingers on Eva’s face, on the lines carved by grief and years.

Historian
You know why it began, don’t you? It wasn’t for harvest. The records suggest it was—population control, punishment for dissent. A way to silence the disobedient. That’s all.

The villagers mutter uneasily. Bill turns away. Eva stares at the Historian with something between pity and fury.

Eva
That’s what you think. That’s what they wrote down. But it’s not the whole of it.

The Historian opens his notebook, eager, trying to pin down the ritual in words. He gestures at the villagers, coaxing them.

Historian
Traditions end. They can be studied, understood, abandoned. You could end this. Why haven’t you?

The black box rattles faintly on its pedestal. A slip of paper flutters out on its own and lands face-up. The black mark glows faintly. The Historian freezes. The villagers stiffen, their fear palpable.

Historian (whispering)
No one drew.

Bill Hutchinson (hollow, resigned)
It doesn’t matter. It draws us.

The whispers grow louder, unmistakable now. Tessie’s voice, layered with others, surrounds the square.

Voices (overlapping, rising)
It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. It must be done.

The Historian stumbles back, clutching his satchel. Eva steps toward the pedestal, her eyes locked on the marked slip. She picks it up with steady hands, tucking it into her pocket as she once did as a girl.

Eva (to the Historian, quietly)
It doesn’t want a reason anymore. It never did. It just wants.

The Historian stares, shaken.

Historian
But… it’s just paper. Just ink. Just—

The slips inside the box burst upward in a sudden flurry, swirling like a storm of white birds. Among them, shadows of stones loom and fall, over and over. The villagers drop to their knees instinctively, shielding their faces. Eva alone stands, unblinking in the storm.

Voices (shrieking and whispering, Tessie among them)
It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.

The slips settle. The Historian looks around wildly. He sees Tessie’s ghost—her face pale, her eyes endless, a stone in her hand. Behind her, shadows of Nancy and others who were taken, all standing silently among the villagers. Their presence is undeniable. The Historian staggers back, trembling.

Historian (hoarse)
This… this should not exist.

Eva (cold, resolute)
But it does. And it always will.

The Historian flees, dropping his notebook. The villagers remain frozen. Eva steps to the center of the square, holding the marked slip aloft. The voices hush. The crows fall silent. For the first time in years, the square is utterly still.

Eva (to the villagers, to the unseen)
I’ll carry it. As she did. As we all must.

The black box collapses into dust on the pedestal, leaving only slips of paper drifting down like ash. Eva does not flinch. She closes her fist around the marked slip, her eyes burning with defiance—and something darker, as though the lottery itself has chosen her as keeper.

Lights dim until only Eva’s silhouette remains, the slip glowing faintly in her hand. The whispers rise once more, softer, like lullabies twisted into curses.

Voices (fading into silence)
It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.

Blackout.

Final Thoughts By Shirley Jackson

One never really expects traditions to explain themselves. They are not designed for reason; they are designed to endure. Ask too many questions and you discover there are no answers—only the insistence that things must be done as they have always been done. A black box crumbles but is tied back together; the slips of paper multiply like weeds. That is the nature of custom: it decays and yet persists, demanding obedience long after its purpose is forgotten.

It is tempting to say that the lottery is about crops or about community or about history. Perhaps it was once. Perhaps it never was. But what matters is not the explanation. What matters is that the villagers continue to gather, continue to draw slips, continue to lift stones. They do it because it is expected, and expectation is as binding as law.

In these expanded scenes, time passes, voices protest, even outsiders appear with notebooks and theories. Still, the ritual remains. The dead do not leave quietly, and the living cannot imagine themselves without the weight of the act. The horror is not in the single stoning but in the certainty that it will happen again, and again, because no one dares to stop it.

What begins as an ordinary morning ends, as it always must, with stones in hand. And the most unsettling part is how little effort it takes for everyone to play their part.

Short Bios:

Shirley Jackson (1916–1965)

An American writer known for her mastery of psychological horror and unsettling social critique. Her short story The Lottery (1948) remains one of the most famous and controversial works of 20th-century fiction, exposing the dangers of conformity and blind tradition.

Tessie Hutchinson (Fictional Character)

The ill-fated “winner” of the lottery, Tessie’s desperate protest—“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”—captures the story’s moral heart. In the reimagined play, her presence lingers beyond death, haunting both villagers and readers as the embodiment of resistance crushed by ritual.

Bill Hutchinson (Fictional Character)

Tessie’s husband, who reluctantly accepts the lottery’s outcome. His silence and passivity reflect the community’s complicity, making him both victim and perpetrator. In later scenes, his children bear the weight of his choices.

Eva Hutchinson (Fictional Character, Reimagined)

Tessie’s daughter, given a larger role in the expanded play. She grows from silent witness into reluctant inheritor of the lottery’s legacy, ultimately becoming a figure who bridges the living and the dead.

Old Man Warner (Fictional Character)

The oldest villager, Warner embodies blind adherence to tradition. His repeated mantra—“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”—justifies violence as necessary, revealing how custom is preserved through fear.

Mr. Summers & Mr. Graves (Fictional Characters)

The officials who manage the lottery each year. Summers represents routine administration, while Graves symbolizes its funereal certainty. Together, they keep the ritual alive through bureaucratic order.