The Crucible | PlayMakers Repertory Company

Directed by Desdemona Chiang

Fear stokes dangerous fires

Miller’s landmark play gripped our audience 40 years ago, but couldn’t be more timely today. PlayMakers crowns its 40th Anniversary with a fresh look at this masterful drama exploring the slippery slope of mass hysteria.

TONY AWARD-WINNER FOR BEST PLAY

“[a] cruelly magnificent play”
The New York Times

AGE RECOMMENDATION

Arthur Miller’s classic play explores the consequences of a community’s descent into mass hysteria. This piece will be best appreciated by patrons 12 years and older.

Experience The Crucible in-the-round

To enhance your PlayMakers theatre-going experience, we’ve designed an additional seating section exclusively for The Crucible. This new premium section is located in the area behind where the Paul Green stage is typically situated and only allows for 44 seats. Tickets are going fast, so call our Box Office at 919.962.7529 today to purchase your chance to see PlayMakers from an exciting new angle. (Not available online)

Photos

Nov 3 2016

The Crucible Now and Then: The 40th Anniversary

PlayMakers’ 1977 production of The Crucible gripped audiences then—and still, 40 years later, the play resonates with audiences now more than ever. PlayMakers’ very own David Adamson has actually worked on both productions, as has Mark Phialas. Each of them gave us insight on how the productions compare and contrast with one another, and how The Crucible has managed to retain its vibrancy and relevance throughout the years.

Nov 3 2016

Danforth's Journal: Week Four

We’re open and running! Wow. Fun! The company, cast and crew are tight — it feels good to play this play. These days, it even feels like a responsibility! The audience response has been all we’d hoped for...They continue to tell us what the play is, every night. It’s an honor, a privilege, to make this play every night WITH them...(I can’t emphasize enough how much we NEED that audience presence, that participation that truly makes the event happen!)

Oct 27 2016

The Crucible In-the-Round with Narelle Sissons

It's a good thing set designer Narelle Sissons is up for the challenge! PlayMakers' production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible is seated "in-the-round," a diversion from the Paul Green Theatre's usual three-sided thrust stage.

Oct 24 2016

Salem, McCarthy, and the Spectre of Mass Hysteria

By Mark Perry, dramaturg In a 1960 interview, playwright Arthur Miller described his motive in writing The Crucible as follows: "It was an attempt ... to say that one couldn't passively sit back and watch the world being destroyed under him, even if he did share the general guilt ... I was calling for an act of will. I was trying to say that injustice has features ..."

Oct 17 2016

Danforth's Journal: Week Three

Some unsettling things have come up as we’ve been rehearsing… Plays are, of course, always about more than the specific story that happens… So, while adolsecent girls in the play experiment with dancing in the woods and thinking about love (and sex), the grown-ups are searching desperately for the cause of a mysterious illness that seems to be striking them… And there’s fear in that search.

Oct 14 2016

Timelessness Through Design with Grier Coleman

Although Arthur Miller's The Crucible takes place in the late 17th century, no theatrical element can bring the play to life in a new, redesigned perspective more clearly than Grier Coleman's costume design. As soon as the lights up come, our audience will realize, as Grier puts it, "This isn't your grandmother's Crucible!"

Oct 7 2016

Danforth's Journal: Week Two

This week we had a our first “stumble-through” with the first-pass at the staging...Exciting, but “miles to go before we sleep...”

Sep 25 2016

Danforth's Journal: Week One

PlayMakers company member Jeffrey Blair Cornell is keeping a journal of his impressions of the process for creating our upcoming production of The Crucible. Keep checking back for more updates as the production comes together. Thursday, September 16, 2016 JP (John Patrick, Vocal Coach for PlayMakers) just sent me an email: “Yo! You around today?… Read more »

Sep 20 2016

First Rehearsal for The Crucible

Rehearsals for The Crucible are underway! The entire team gathered for the first time on September 30 to start this important and exciting journey together.

REVIEWS

PlayMakers Repertory’s “Crucible” compelling and contemporary
By Roy C. Dicks
News & Observer
October 24, 2016

PlayMakers Repertory Company Puts the Spark Back into Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
By Dustin K. Britt
Triangle Arts & Entertainment
October 24, 2016

American Meltdown: A Timely Reprise of THE CRUCIBLE, at PlayMakers Rep
By Kate Dobbs Ariail
The Five Points Star
October 25, 2016

The Crucible at PlayMakers Repertory Company
By Garrett Southerland
Talkin’ Broadway
October 27, 2016

PlayMakers’ The Crucible Is a Brisk Study in Paranoia and Suspicion
By Byron Woods
INDY Week
October 27, 2016

NEWS

Theatre Picks: PlayMakers stages Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”
By Roy C. Dicks
The News & Observer
October 20, 2016

INDY Theatre Pick: The Crucible
By Byron Woods
INDY WEEK
October 19, 2016

The Crucible at PlayMakers Rep is Arthur Miller’s Cautionary Tale About the Salem Witch Trials’ Rush to Judgment
By Robert W. McDowell
Triangle Arts & Entertainment
October 19, 2016

More Relevant Than Ever: “The Crucible” Opens at PlayMakers
By Aaron Keck
WCHL/Chapelboro.com
October 18, 2016

PlayMakers brings it full circle with “The Crucible”
By Nic Rardin
The Daily Tar Heel
October 6, 2016