Lotto Fever in the Sucker State presented by Saint Sebastian Players at St. Bonaventure Church

Lotto Fever in the Sucker State, SSP's second world premiere by company member Leigh Johnson (after Lefties in 2013), takes place circa 1988 at Rayners Victory Cafe in central Illinois, where life has taken a difficult turn due to the farm foreclosure crisis. The diner's new, young "citified" owner, Steven Rayner, is desperately trying to build his customer base, with comically mixed results. His steadiest customers, the Smithfield family, have resorted to ritually playing the Illinois State Lottery to mask the fact that they are losing the family farm. Calvin Smithfield's efforts to save the farm have attracted two agents, who use the diner as a base of operations to attempt to locate the marijuana they suspect is being grown in the area. Add to this mix a confused professor of English literature, who finds the cafe's customers the perfect subjects for his passion for American colloquialism, and Noreen, the waitress who acts as a one-woman Greek chorus to the madness swirling around her, and the result is a wild hayride that produces laughter and tears, sometimes at the same time.