Brush up on 'The Crucible' before seeing 'John Proctor is the Villain' on Broadway

You don't need to have read Arthur Miller's classic drama to appreciate Kimberly Belflower's new play, but they're in thought-provoking conversation with each other.

Stranger Things star Sadie Sink is back on Broadway to turn things upside down. This time, she's not in the Upside Down, but rather in a high school classroom of a one-stoplight town in Kimberly Belflower’s new Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain at the Booth Theatre.

Directed by 2024 Tony Award winner Danya Taymor (The Outsiders), John Proctor Is the Villain explores Arthur Miller’s The Crucible through a modern, feminist lens. A group of teenagers, led by Sink, question the play they're studying in school as local secrets emerge that threaten their status quo. What if the hero of the play is actually the villain, they ask? What if our teachers are wrong? What if our whole town is wrong?

John Proctor Is the Villain is not the only show to use a classic play to make a point about contemporary society, but it is the first Broadway show in conversation with The Crucible in the post-#MeToo era. And it may be the first time Miller has been quoted alongside Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Lorde on a major stage.

You don’t have to be familiar with The Crucible to see Belflower's play, but if you want a quick refresher, we’ve got you covered. Scroll down to read everything you need to know about the history of The Crucible and the Salem Witch Trials in the context of John Proctor Is the Villain. Consider this your green light to get your tickets to this buzzy new show!

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What is John Proctor Is the Villain about?

John Proctor Is the Villain is about a group of high school students studying The Crucible in 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement. As accusations emerge in their small Georgia town, the play takes on additional meaning and relevance to their own lives.

Belflower often writes plays about and for young people. Fittingly, this show was developed at several colleges before it premiered at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and the Huntington Theatre in Boston. She now makes her Broadway debut with John Proctor Is the Villain.

What is The Crucible about?

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a work of historical fiction set during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93. The show's main character is John Proctor, who is falsely accused of witchcraft. Also at the center of the story is Abigail Williams, who accuses multiple others to divert suspicion away from herself.

While The Crucible is based on real events, it is still a work of fiction. Miller took small liberties, like changing names, and much larger ones, like inventing an affair between Abigail (who was 11 years old in 1692) and John, her employer, because it mirrored his own life experience.

The Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Miller is considered to be one of the most preeminent playwrights of the 20th century for penning shows like The Crucible, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman.

Who are the main characters in John Proctor Is the Villain?

The majority of the characters are high school students in a junior honors literature class: Beth, Nell, Ivy, Raelynn, Lee, Mason, and Shelby. The remaining characters are their teacher, Carter Smith, and the school’s guidance counselor, Bailey Gallagher.

Among the ensemble cast, a key character is Shelby (Sadie Sink), who identifies with Abigail for various reasons we won't spoil here. In Shelby’s view, John Proctor is The Crucible's antagonist, while Abigail is the heroine.

Additionally, Beth leads the class through a debate on this topic, and Raelynn points out John's mistreatment of his wife, Elizabeth, by modern standards. The play subverts expected norms not just about The Crucible, but also the people in the characters' own community.

Who are the main characters in The Crucible?

The main characters in The Crucible are John Proctor and Abigail Williams; they and many other of the play's characters are named for and based on real people. In the play, Abigail is presented negatively as a woman who seduced John, a married man, away from his honorable life and family. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is portrayed as pure for patiently suffering and encouraging her husband to find his way back to “his goodness.”

Multiple supporting characters are girls and women in Abigail's circle, mirroring the main ensemble of girls featured in John Proctor Is the Villain.

What were the Salem Witch Trials?

Both The Crucible and John Proctor Is the Villain draw upon this historical event that took place in the Salem, Massachusetts, area in the 17th century.

As Mr. Smith tells his students in John Proctor, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft, from making deals with the devil to hexing their neighbor's livestock. The first accusations were made by preteen and teenage girls, and in the end, 20 people, mostly women, were executed for being witches. Many were hung at a site now known as Proctors Ledge, after (you guessed it) John Proctor.

People believed in witchcraft at the time, and some Salem residents may have dabbled in spells and divination. That said, modern historians have non-supernatural theories for what actually occurred during that time: mass hysteria, ergot poisoning from moldy bread, class struggles, and disagreements over property.

This last theory arises in John Proctor Is the Villain, when Beth tells her classmates the town officials used the young women as pawns to settle land disputes. Shelby counters with a more provocative suggestion inspired by Stacey Schiff's book The Witches: The girls had PTSD from sexual assault and/or seeing violence, a theory backed by the text of The Crucible. Earlier, Shelby performs Abigail's monologue about witnessing her parents' deaths.

How do The Crucible and John Proctor Is the Villain speak to contemporary events?

In 1953, Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory for the Red Scare in the early 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to track down the "communist spies" supposedly infiltrating America. He was politically outspoken and almost blacklisted when he refused to name names in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In 2018, Belflower wrote John Proctor Is the Villain to examine the impact of the #MeToo movement and its related cycles of power. In the context of accusations against a prominent local figure, she explores how the term "witch hunt" has worked its way into contemporary culture but slightly shifted in meaning. The shift calls back to how Miller portrayed John Proctor in The Crucible.

How many times was The Crucible on Broadway?

The Crucible has been on Broadway six times. The original production opened in 1953 and won the Tony Award for Best Play. Most recently, a 2016 revival was directed by Ivo van Hove and featured an original score by Philip Glass. The starry cast included Ben Whishaw as John Proctor, Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor, and Saoirse Ronan in her Broadway debut as Abigail Williams. A 2002 revival featured Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, plus a young Kristen Bell in the ensemble.

Additionally, Daniel Day-Lewis starred as John Proctor in the 1996 film adaptation alongside Winona Ryder (as Abigail) and Joan Allen (as Elizabeth). In John Proctor Is the Villain, Shelby mentions watching the movie and calls Day-Lewis “super hot.”

Do you need to know The Crucible to see John Proctor Is the Villain?

You don’t need to know The Crucible to enjoy John Proctor Is the Villain. That said, the classic play is repeatedly referenced throughout John Proctor, starting with the first scene, as the students study the text. They even perform a Crucible-inspired group project: an interpretative dance to Lorde’s “Green Light” that makes for one of John Proctor's greatest tour-de-force moments.

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Photo credit: The cast of John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway. (Photos by Damon Baker, Nina Westervelt)