The 'John Proctor Is the Villain' cast is putting a spell on Broadway

Five actors — Fina Strazza, Morgan Scott, Maggie Kuntz, Amalia Yoo, and Molly Griggs — dish on the Crucible-inspired, seven-time Tony-nominated new play.

There's no witchcraft in Kimberly Belflower's seven-time Tony Award-nominated play John Proctor Is the Villain, but each of the five high school girls at its center taps into something that feels supernatural, or at least much bigger than themselves. Harnessing those ever-underestimated powers of teen angst and pop music, they conjure a stronger sense of their own voices during their class unit on The Crucible, questioning interpretations of Arthur Miller’s play their teacher presents as fact.

The girls' doubts about the Salem Witch Trials-set text are prompted in part by the #MeToo movement and its sudden impact on not only their rural Georgia town, but their own friend group. Brash Shelby (Tony nominee Sadie Sink), bookish Beth (Tony nominee Fina Strazza), observant Nell (Morgan Scott), steadfast Ivy (Maggie Kuntz), and careful Raelynn (Amalia Yoo) all experience it differently, as do their male classmates and guidance counselor, Miss Gallagher (Molly Griggs), who's not much older than the girls. Right up to an exhilarating finale involving class presentation day and the Lorde song "Green Light," the characters are debating not only their teacher, but also each other and even themselves.

"Kimberly, in writing this play, was such an advocate for multiple interpretations of this canonical text," said Kuntz. In that spirit, New York Theatre Guide sat with five of John Proctor Is the Villain's women — Griggs, Kuntz, Scott, Strazza, and Yoo — to dish on their diverse takes on The Crucible, their John Proctor characters, both shows' major themes, and their own teenage selves.

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What was your first exposure to The Crucible, and what was your response to it at the time?

Maggie Kuntz: I was familiar with some of Arthur Miller's other plays long before The Crucible, but actually, the first time I saw or read it all the way through was after I found out I was doing this show. I watched the '90s movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. It's pretty brilliant.

Fina Strazza: Similar to Maggie, I found out about the show and then very quickly got my television on. It was good fun. It's dark, but a great story.

Morgan Scott: [The older kids] at my performing arts high school […] put on The Crucible as their senior show. I just remember being so in the world of it all, like, "Wow, these kids my age are doing this really classic show and doing it well.”

Amalia Yoo: I remember seeing the [Ivo] van Hove production when it was in the city, with Saiorse [Ronan], the one with the live wolf on stage. I was like, "Ah, I would love to get to do a play like that one day." It's crazy and surreal now that we're doing this.

Molly Griggs: I'm actually shocked I'm the only one who read it in high school! We read it out loud. My teacher fancied himself an actor and read the "Because it is my name..." monologue. He clearly did it every year and was into it.

In rehearsal, you read The Crucible and also read each other's parts in John Proctor. What conversations did those readings open up for you?

Kuntz: I loved getting to read The Crucible together, not only to open up a new dialogue and the ability to critique it, but also because it is an amazing play. Our title of this play is John Proctor Is the Villain, and that is a line from Shelby. That is Shelby's very strong opinion, and there's truth in it, and there's also truth in so many other interpretations.

Scott: I remember being so struck by [The Crucible's] courtroom scene, especially [...] how some of [our] classroom scenes function similarly, like the interpretive project presentation day. You're learning in a classroom, but the way Mr. Smith's junior lit honors class functions is forum-esque.

So much of the play can sometimes even feel like [...] a performance within a performance of, "I'm young. I'm finally given the space to say what's on my mind, to express my thoughts and my ideas in this structured environment." Mr. Smith's classroom is a crucible of sorts.

Griggs: It was amazing to see how there are very clear counterpoints to the characters in The Crucible in this play. I read for Reverend Hale, and Miss Gallagher and Reverend Hale have such similar jobs. They kind of are the audience in both plays.

Then I read for Beth when we read each other's parts, and that was so special because Beth and Miss Gallagher are little twin flames in the play.

Strazza: I read for Mary Warren, which was fun. She's a very frantic girl; definitely aligns with Beth. It made us see the play in a new way, and same when we all read for each other. I read for [male student] Lee, which was, like, the opposite side of the planet from Beth.

It was a practice of surrendering your character to someone else and also accepting the choices they were making and allowing them to teach you something new.

Yoo: I got to read [for fellow student] Mason when we did our play, which I loved getting to do because I found so much similarity between Mason and Rae I don't think I would have noticed.

So many of these characters experience transformation, and Rae and Mason are both being radicalized throughout the course of this play. Sometimes they say the right things and you love them for it, and then sometimes they revert to their old ways and your heart hurts for them, and you want them to get it right.

When we read The Crucible, I was Goody [Elizabeth] Proctor. It was really informative. I won't spoil presentation day, but [director] Danya [Taymor], Sadie, and I had a lot of conversations about what it means for Shelby and Rae. There's so many layers to it. It's Amalia and Sadie taking on Raelynn and Shelby taking on Elizabeth and Abigail, getting to express ourselves and call things out and speak our truths. That's really cool to get to do every night, and reading The Crucible helped inform all that.

That presentation day scene is a thrilling moment. What does it conjure up for you each time you perform it?

Yoo: It's so different every single night. A lot of my own self is purged. No matter how the rest of the play had gone so far, I know at the end I'm going to get to dance with Sadie by my side and release it.

It's super visceral, and even though it's tiring as well, it feels really empowering. It's just a lot of fun to get to dance at the end.

Scott: You're doing such beautiful work that I'm just so proud of you. As the scene progresses, there's this veil that falls away. It's so personal.

Griggs: What makes that [scene] so special is because the writing up to this moment is so pitch-perfect [...] It doesn't feel like you have to gear up for anything. It's all right there because the whole play has propelled everybody to this moment.

Kuntz: Without spoiling too much, my character spends most of that final scene just sitting and watching and making the conscious choice to not participate, which, as Maggie, is so hard. [But] watching them and being able to witness the bravery it takes these characters, and these actors, and these people to stand up and do something like that always affects me so deeply.

Regardless of what message you take away from the play — everyone will take away different things — that final scene is such a statement of bravery and truth-telling. I walk away from the show every night feeling like, "Okay, now I've got to go about my next day living up to that."

Strazza: That final scene is such a great moment that allows the audience to show us what it's meant to them because the response is just always so overwhelming. We all feel very lucky we're part of something that has such a great impact on people.

The girls reference lots of pop stars in the show. How do the themes in their music connect to John Proctor?

Strazza: I love that the song that plays right before the show starts is "Team" by Lorde, where she sings, "We live in cities we'll never see on a screen." Kimberly has talked about that so much with us, about how this play is based off her hometown, a small town in the South. People haven't really written super representative stories about the place she grew up.

Scott: We have Lorde with "Green Light," and then Taylor Swift is our other big one, and Beyoncé. I was a huge Swiftie. I learned how to play guitar because of Taylor Swift. I just remember connecting so much to her outpouring of her heart in her lyrics. At 7, I hadn't experienced heartbreak, but I could just feel it. These girls definitely, especially in 2018, see themselves in [Swift]. She's a guiding figure.

Griggs: I was in college when Beyonce's self-titled [album] came out. [A] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speech is in "Flawless," and I was radicalized by that song. I felt more embodied and more able to stand in my own femininity [...] This is also what's happening with these characters as they're trying to figure out how to stand in their bodies.

Yoo: People can be so reductive about [pop music], especially female artists. Anything teenage girls like is seen as trivial and unimportant. These artists help us have a voice. Raelynn literally uses a Taylor Swift song to help her... do something in the play you'll have to come and see! I just love how fearlessly (wink) they are able to love Taylor Swift.

What else resonates with you about your characters?

Strazza: It always strikes me how much hope Beth has. It can be mistaken for her being naive, but she is always willing to hope for the best in people, and she is hoping you've made the right decision, and she is willing to stand by whatever you're saying. It breaks my heart [because the good in them] might not always be there. She inspires me to be more hopeful of people and of myself.

Griggs: The very first thing I read about Miss Gallagher is the character description. It says, "Bailey Gallagher, 24. She is trying her best." It feels very close to me and how I'm trying to move through the world.

Kuntz: [Ivy] has such a deep strength. In her character description is "fiercely loyal and always well-intentioned." I admire the way she [...] doesn't know what to do when loyalty to one person means forfeiting loyalty to another, but she tries to do both.

I sometimes wonder if I could withstand that amount of pressure and wait for as long as she does in the way that she does. It's not always successful, and sometimes she says the wrong thing, but I really admire that.

Scott: Nell is the new girl in town, and I moved around a good little bit when I was younger, so I definitely relate. Especially when you're young, your heart's desire is to just belong. I really admire about Nell how she she wants to fit in, but she's still fully herself.

As a teenager, you have all these insecurities, and you're still figuring yourself out, but the parts Nell does have figured out, she's 10 toes down about those things. She's so grateful these girls have welcomed her into the community that she's a protector. She is this bridge of sorts. I don't think it's conscious.

Yoo: These girls are so smart, their minds move so fast, and they're so intuitive. What is so inspiring and touching to me is how, even when their relationships and friendships feel miles apart, they still have so much care and love for each other. It reminds me of relationships in my life that I've been lucky enough to have, and my best friends.

What do you hope audiences will get from the show?

Griggs: We're so accustomed to watching something like The Crucible and finding something in John Proctor to relate to. We are all taught from a young age to extend our empathy to characters like him. I just ask everyone to come to this, whether you be a teenage girl or whether you be an older man or a woman in her 30s, to open your heart and allow yourself to see yourself in these teenage girls, because they contain "frickin' multitudes."

Kuntz: I hope, and I believe, everybody will walk away learning a lot from this play and asking a lot of questions and maybe not having a lot of answers. For young women specifically, this play can provide a real opportunity for […] healing, catharsis, release, a way to reckon with […] cultural messaging we've received throughout our whole lives, as these girls are too. Also just feeling seen, like you have voice to your experiences.

This play is not monolithic in terms of feminine experience. Every single one of these characters is experiencing the events of this play very, very differently. There is something everybody can see a version of themselves in.

Strazza: I hope people walk away knowing they are able to make impacts on their small communities. Something like the #MeToo movement seems so larger than life and impossible to tackle, but there are much more concentrated instances. These girls are so brave in how they handle this really, really difficult and messy issue that goes on in their town.

What were you like in high school?

Strazza: I'm 19, pretty much the same! I graduated high school two years ago, so like this, but a little bit more stressed out because I had a lot of homework.

Scott: I was also very stressed out. And I was new. I was not like Nell as a new girl; I was overwhelmed. I moved from China back to the States, lived there from age 10 to 14, went to a private middle school overseas, and then came back my freshman year of high school and started going to public school in South Carolina. I was like, "What's going on? I don't know who I am. Nobody else knows who I am either."

Griggs: I was so weird. Truly, so weird, and a theatre kid. I also was barely in school — I would max out my absences every year because I was always leaving early to go rehearse something, or I would drive myself to dance class an hour away because I lived in a smaller community in North Carolina. People didn't know what to do with me. It's okay. We're fine now.

Yoo: I was simultaneously super forthright in my opinions — I was lucky enough to go to an art school where expression was very much encouraged, and I did a lot of feminist theatre in high school, so I felt very empowered in my beliefs — but then also so deeply insecure about my own self.

I feel like I'm, at the same time, a completely different person and the same girl I was in high school in a lot of ways. I have such a deep admiration and love for who I was in high school, even though it's also embarrassing to think about.

Kuntz: I was such a go-getter in high school. I was doing the most, but it was all propelled by a real desire. I was such a theatre kid. I [got] straight A's, I felt like I had to achieve everything all at once all the time.

I grew up in the Midwest, so there's a culture of niceness. [That] sometimes comes, especially when you're a young girl, at the expense of personal sovereignty, and that's something I've had to learn throughout the years. I have so much admiration for who I was in high school and the drive with which I moved through things and the bravery. At the same time, you wish you could hug her.

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Interview excerpts have been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

Photo credit: John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway. (Photos by Julieta Cervantes)