THE CRUCIBLE 2023

Before QAnon, before the Satanic Panic, before the Red Scare, there was the Salem Witch trials. Weaponized othering for simple revenge or personal gain. The Crucible reminds us that ‘We are what we always were’, and the urgent need for us as a community to push back against this bigotry, before we like Salem, get consumed by it.

In this world of The Crucible, the audience finds itself in The Society, an isolated controlled, cult like community. Here we see how quickly and devastatingly the consequences of repression, brutal control and insidious politics can consume all in its path.

I have never directed a more complicated and complex play. I’ve directed a lot of Shakespeare, endless fight scenes, I’ve directed musicals that require every actor on stage to match their lines and action with the pit. I’ve directed Titus Andronicus for goodness’s sake. But The Crucible beats them all. This is a true ensemble; EVERY SINGLE character is urgently needed to tell this story of a community self-destructing. There are so many layers to every character and every relationship on stage. We are not shying away from the truth that these are real people in real relationships that can be messy, funny, furious, and human.

Nothing is simple, nothing can be taken for granted, nothing is safe, this is the story of a community screaming, yelling, accusing, and blindly running towards self-implosion.

It reminds us that we as humans keep making the same mistakes.

We keep finding ourselves in a crucible of our own making.

The Crucible was performed in 2023 at The Mounds Theatre, in St. Paul, Minnesota.