About Lydia

• Remembering Chris Webb: 1973-2008
• A Note from The artistic director
• Border Play
• Close my eyes and you're there:
  A Poem by Octavio Solis
• LOTERÍA: La Vida Cecilia
• Slanglish Glossary
• Mining Memory: An Interview with Octavio Solis and Juliette Carrillo

LOTERÍA: La Vida Cecilia

Lotería is a game of chance, similar to Bingo, played with a deck of 54 cards. Each card has its own image, name, and number, which the contestants match to the pictures on their tabla, or game board. The cantor, or singer, draws the cards randomly and announces them, sometimes by name but sometimes by calling out a riddle that matches a card’s image. For example, the cantor will call out “¡Ah, qué borracho tan necio, ya no lo puedo aguantar!” or “I cannot put up with the foolish drunk!” The winner is the first to match four pictures on her tabla in a row or in a box and shout “¡Lotería!” In Lydia, Ceci loves lotería and imagines her own cards using the characters in her family. These are some images from the lotería deck.

—Matt Cornish, Production Dramaturg

Move your mouse over the lotería cards to reveal a translation or a traditional clue.