DEKALB, ILL, September 7, 2022 – Stage Coach Players (SCP) brings one of Arthur Miller’s best-known plays, The Crucible, to its stage this fall. The drama revolves around the Salem Witch Trials and those who are wrongly accused of practicing witchcraft. The Tony Award-Winning play, opens on September 22, 2022 and will run for two weekends.
The Crucible is a partially fictionalized telling of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the late 17th century. The drama is an allegory for McCarthyism, when the U. S. government went after Americans who were accused of being communists. Brad Shortridge directs The Crucible.
After they are found dancing in the woods (which is forbidden in the Puritan New World), several girls begin accusing others in their village of witchcraft in order to avoid punishment. They are led by Abigail Williams (Valarie Milbrath) who also accuses the wife of John Proctor (Gavin Wilson) as she harbors a yearning for him. Elizabeth Proctor (Dorcas Keating) is arrested, and so John goes to the court to plead for his wife’s release from Deputy Governor Danforth (Steve Sturm).
The cast includes Norm Read as Reverend Hale, Jeff Hall as Reverend Parris, Mike Groark as Giles Corey, Ryan Ziegelbauer as Judge Hathorne and Piper Schiola-Williams as Mary Warren. Alexis Barkman, Gloria Dennison, Ashley Kelly, David Kuhn, Stephen Long, Summer McFalls, Christina Myroth, Aaron Schryver, Mandi Sester, Monique Smith, and Adam Wirth round out the cast.
Early American society’s acceptance of the outcome of the Salem witch trials may seem odd to us today, Keating said. “But what is so compelling about Miller’s script is that he wrote it as an allegory for McCarthyism of the 1950s.”
Wilson followed up that thought, “When people rush to judgment, when accusers are believed blindly, when ‘group think’ or mob rule ends up being sanctioned… It shows humans at our very worst. At our most blind and selfish.”
Shortridge offered that the hysteria going on in Salem at the time was in some ways foreseeable. “The Puritans’ strict rules for living left little room for entertainment,” adding, “It is no surprise that teenagers would rebel against such oppression. In this case, girls caught dancing and the threat of painful punishment takes catastrophic turns when the girls decide to use the Puritanical fear of evil spirits as a weapon.”
The Crucible is sponsored by Jerry and Annette Johns, and Luke Butler Improvements.
Performances for The Crucible are September 22 – September 24, 2022, and September 30 – October 1, 2022, with a curtain time of 7:30 p.m. along with Sunday matinees on September 25 and October 2, 2022, with a curtain time of 2:00. Tickets are $15 each or $13 for seniors and children aged 13 and under. Tickets are currently on sale through the box office phone at 815-758-1940. To purchase tickets, visit our online website at www.stagecoachplayers.com. The box office will open Sunday, September 23, 2022.
Thank you for understanding as SCP navigates COVID-19 guidelines. For this production, masks are suggested but not required. If the state of Illinois guidelines change, our guidelines will change also. Thank you for helping us keep our patrons, cast and crew safe.
