The critically acclaimed Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain, which just earned seven Tony nominations, is inspired by The Crucible. But the show, written by Kimberly Belflower, doesn't confine its references to Puritans and midcentury theater. It also features a killer needle drop to Lorde's 2017 banger "Green Light."
The track is just as important to Belflower's story as Miller's classic is—and the result is a perfect and beguiling blend of pop culture old and new.
The Danya Taymor-directed play, which opened in April, follows a group of teenage girls in rural Georgia in 2018. Their tiny hometown is rocked by #MeToo scandals just as they are reading the 1953 play about the Salem Witch Trials, itself an allegory for McCarthyism, in their honors English class. But to Shelby, played by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink in a heartbreaking and ferocious performance, The Crucible's hero John Proctor is not the noble soul her teacher, Mr. Smith (Gabriel Ebert), suggests. Instead, she sees the classic figure of American drama as a grown man who took advantage of a broken teen girl, Abigail Williams, usually framed as the story's villain. Shelby's passion—and a revelation that follows—is a breaking point for her friends, who are all coming to terms with their own understanding of feminism and autonomy...READ MORE