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Written in the early 1950s, Arthur Miller’s play "The Crucible" takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the 1692 Salem witch trials. This was a time when paranoia, hysteria, and deceit gripped the Puritan towns of New England. Miller captured the events in a riveting story that is now considered a modern classic in the theater.  Miller adds plot twists with a complex array of characters. It is historical fiction, based on documentation of the famous trials and is a compelling production for any actor or theater-goer. 

Spire Center for the Performing Arts,  Plymouth, Massachusetts        July 9 - 26, 2020                                                                       

LOCATIONS:     
Rehearsals and Performances are held at The Spire Center, Plymouth, MA.

REHEARSALS: 
June 21 - July 8;  Mondays-Fridays 4pm - 11pm (5:30pm start for local adults); Saturdays 10am - 2pm  

PERFORMANCES:  
Wednesday-Sunday evenings July 9-26  

ABOUT:             
Established in 2011, Americana Theatre Company is a professional, non-profit theatre located in the heart of downtown Plymouth. 

MONOLOGUE SELECTIONS (CHOOSE ONE)

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MARY WARREN: (accusing a woman of witchcraft, speaking to the Proctor’s) I never knew it before. I never knew anything before. When she come into the court I say to myself, I must not accuse this woman, for she sleep in ditches, and so very old and poor....But then....then she sit there, denying and denying, and I feel a misty coldness climbin’ up my back, and the skin on my skull begin to creep, and I feel a clamp around my neck and I cannot breath air, and then.........I hear a voice, a screamin’ voice, and it were my voice.....and all at once I remembered everything she done to me! So many time, Mister Proctor, she come to this very door beggin’ bread and cider...and mark this...whenever I turned her away empty.....she mumbled! You must remember Goody Proctor—last month—a Monday I think...she walked away and I though my guts would burst for two days after. Do you remember it?  

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SUSANA/BETTY: (using Mary Warren’s monologue) What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby! We’ve got to tell. Withery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things!  

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MERCY LEWIS: (using Abigail’s monologue)  Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.  

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ABIGAIL WILLIAMS (speaking to John Proctor) I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now! You are no wintry man. I know you, John. I know you. I cannot sleep for dreamin’; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you comin’ through some door. [..] I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out from my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You love me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!   

TITUBA  Oh, God bless you, Mr. Hale! Oh, God, protect Tituba! Oh, how many times he bid me kill you, Mr. Parris. He say, Mr. Parris must be kill! Mr. Parris no goodly man, Mr. Parris mean man and no gentle man, and he bid me rise out of my bed and cut your throat! But I tell him know. I don’t hate that man. I don’t want kill that man. But he say, you work for me, Tituba, and I make you free! I give you pretty dress to wear, and put you way high up in the air, and you gone fly back to Barbados! And I say, you lie, Devil, you lie! And then he come one stormy night to me, and he say, Look! I have white people belong to me. And I look - and there was Goody Good.  
  
 

ELIZABETH PROCTOR:  Spoke or silent, a promise is surely made. And she may dote on it now---I am sure she does— and thinks to kill me, then to take my place. It is her dearest hope, John, I know it. There be a thousand names, why does she call mine? There be a certain danger in calling such a name---I am no Goody Good that sleeps in ditches, nor Osburn drunk and half-witted. She’s dare not call out such a farmer’s wife but there be monstrous profit in it. She thinks to take my place, John. John, have you ever shown her somewhat of contempt? She cannot pass you in the church but you will blush...and I think she sees another meaning in that blush. I think you be somewhat ashamed, for I am there, and she so close. Go and tell her she’s a whore. Whatever promise she may sense break it John! Break it! 
 

MRS. PUTNAM: (on the day after the girls danced in the woods) Reverand Parris, I have laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth. Believe me, sir, you never saw more hearty babies born. And yet, each would wither in my arms the very night of their birth. I have spoke nothin’, but my heart has clamored intimations. And now, this year, my Ruth, my only-I see her turning strange. A secret child she has become this year, and shrivels like a suckling mouth were pullin’ on her life too. And so I thought to send her to your Tituba— Tutuba knows how to speak to the dead, Mr. Parris. They were murdered, Mr. Parris! And mark this proof! Mark it! Like night my Ruth were ever so close to their spirits. For how else is she struck dumb now except some power of darkness would stop her mouth?  

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THOMAS PUTNAM: Mr. Parris, I have taken your part in all contention here, and I would continue; but I cannot if you hold back in this. There are hurtful, vengeful spirits layin’ hands on these children. Let you strike out against the Devil, and the village will bless you for it! Come down, speak to them— pray with them. They’re thirsting for your word, Mister!  

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REBECCA NURSE: (speaking to Reverend Parris) I think she’ll wake in time. Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief. I think she’ll wake when she tires of it. A child’s spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.  
 
 

JUDGE DANFORTH: (speaking to members of the court privately) Now hear me, and beguile yourselves no more. I will not receive a single plea for pardon or postponement. Them that will not confess will hang. Twelve are already executed; the names of these seven are given out, and the village expects to see them die at dawn. Postponement, now, speaks a… a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now. While I speak God’s voice, I will not crack its voice with whimpering. Now draw yourselves up like men and help me, as you are bound by Heaven to do. 
  
 

REV HALE: (speaking with Elizabeth about Proctor who is sentenced to hang later that day if he does not confess to witchcraft) Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up. Beware, Goody Proctor - cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God's judgement in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride. Will you plead with him? I cannot think he will listen to another. 
  
 

REV. SAMUEL PARRIS:  Now tell me true, Abigail. And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you, for now my ministry’s at stake, my ministry and perhaps your cousin’s life. Whatever abomination you have done, give me all of it now, for I dare not be taken unaware when I go before them down there. Abigail, I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when there must be some good respect for me in the parish, you compromise my very character. I have given you a home, child, I have put clothes upon your back—now give me upright answer:--- your name in the town-----it is entirely white, is it not? Abigail, is there any other cause than you have told me, for Goody Proctor discharging you? It has troubled me that you are now seven months out of their house, and in all this time no other family has ever called for your service.  

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JOHN PROCTOR (admitting to having an affair with 19-year-old Abigail to the courts in order to save his wife’s life) In what time and place? In the proper place, where my beasts are bedded. Eight months now, sir, it is eight months. She used to serve me in my house, sir. A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything. I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is. My wife, my dear good wife took this girl soon after, sir, and put her out on the high road. And being what she is, a lump of vanity, sir. Excellency, forgive me, forgive me. She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might! For I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat! But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it; I set myself entirely in your hands, I know you must see it now. My wife is innocent, except she know a harlot when she see one! 
 
 

GILES COREY:  That bloody mongrel Walcott charge her. Y’see, he buy a pig of my wife four or five year ago, and the pig died soon after. So he come dancin’ in for his money back. So my Martha, she says to him, “Walcott, if you haven’t the wit to feed a pig properly, you’ll not live to own many,” she says. Now he goes to court and claims that from that day to this he cannot keep a pig alive for more than four weeks because my Martha bewitch them with her books!  
  
 

FRANCIS NURSE: We are desperate, sir; we come here three days now and cannot be heard. Excellency, we have proof for your eyes; God forbid you shut them to it. The girls, sir, the girls are frauds. We have proof of it, sir. Excellency, I never thought to say it to such a weighty judge, but you are deceived.