Learn about how 'John Proctor Is the Villain' relates to Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible'

The smash-hit Tony-nominated play, which is in fascinating conversation with Miller, makes its UK premiere at the Royal Court in 2026.

Summary

• Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain is making its UK premiere at the Royal Court
• This Broadway hit sees a group of high schoolers studying Arthur Miller's play The Crucible
• Miller wrote it about the Salem witch trials during the McCarthyism scare in the 1950s
• The story and themes of Miller's work are paralleled and interrogated by the events in Belflower’s play

One of the most exciting Broadway transfers in 2026 is the much-talked-about play John Proctor Is the Villain. The acclaimed, Tony Award-nominated production, which was led by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink, took audiences by storm over the pond, and is now set to do the same in London.

Kimberly Belflower’s play, a smart revisionist take on Arthur Miller’s classic, makes its UK premiere at the Royal Court in March, once again directed by Tony winner Danya Taymor (The Outsiders). Since the action is set in a school, take this opportunity to swot up on a must-see show and get ready to ace it!

Learn all about the story, how it relates to The Crucible and more ahead of your trip to John Proctor Is the Villain.

Book John Proctor Is the Villain tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

What is John Proctor Is the Villain about?

The show is set in 2018 in a small town in rural Georgia, where English teacher Carter Smith is instructing his high school students on Miller’s seminal work The Crucible. But the events and themes of the play soon intersect with real-life events in his pupils’ lives.

That includes straight-A student Beth deciding to set up the school’s first feminist club – not without some opposition – and another student, Shelby, returning to school after a long, unexplained absence. The #MeToo movement comes into play when fellow student Ivy’s father is accused of sexual harassment, and the girls also begin to question their relationships with the boys in their school.

The play comes to a startling climax (which we won’t spoil here!) that brings together all these different explorations of power dynamics, credibility, disenfranchisement and gender equality, in a way that both interrogates the usual reading of Miller’s work and also speaks potently to our present moment.

How does the play relate to The Crucible?

Both explicitly and with clever parallels throughout the show. It’s a plot point that the main characters are studying The Crucible, and that some of them wind up disagreeing with their male teacher about who the so-called heroes and villains of the story are from their perspective – hence the brilliantly provocative title.

There are also fascinating story and thematic resonances within John Proctor Is the Villain. Just like Miller’s work, this new play features accusations made by women against men, a vital question about who we choose to believe and why, and an examination of different ways that power and influence can be wielded.

The year that the show is set in is also significant: around the time that #MeToo was becoming a global, galvanising movement, yet was criticised by some as a “witch hunt” – a charged term that can definitely be compared with the period in which Miller was writing, and what he was writing about in his play.

This is not just an adaptation of The Crucible, or the same story put in a different setting, but a separate, contemporary work that is in thoughtful conversation with the Miller play – while also giving it a fascinating revisionist reading within the show.

What is The Crucible about?

The Crucible is set during the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, in a Puritan colony in Massachusetts. It begins with preacher Samuel Parris discovering his daughter Betty lying motionless, the day after he caught her dancing naked in the forest with other girls and his Barbadian slave Tituba. Parris believes his niece Abigail Williams is their ringleader.

Abigail denies that they were engaged in witchcraft. But in this paranoid atmosphere, there is soon a dangerous barrage of accusations hurled at various townsfolk, leading to a full witch trial. Among those accused, by Abigail, is Elizabeth, wife of farmer John Proctor. It transpires that John had an affair with the much-younger Abigail, who was working in his household at the time, and subsequently fired her.

Hysteria grips the town and dozens of people are arrested, tried and executed. John has also been accused, and Elizabeth tries to persuade him to falsely confess to witchcraft in the hope that it saves his life. He ultimately refuses and the play ends with him being led away to be hanged.

What is the history of The Crucible?

Miller wrote the play in the 1950s, when America was in the grip of a different kind of hysteria: McCarthyism. The Crucible serves as an allegory for this political persecution, which saw Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) interrogating anyone they claimed had communist sympathies.

Among those whose lives were destroyed by McCarthyism were Hollywood screenwriters and directors. Miller himself was questioned by HUAC and convicted of contempt of Congress when he refused to name other people who had attended meetings of the communist party.

The Crucible premiered on Broadway in 1953 and won the Tony Award for Best Play. It has since become a notable work in the theatre canon, regularly revived on stage and adapted into two movies, including one in 1996 starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Scofield, and Winona Ryder (who, like Sink, is a star of Stranger Things).

It’s also frequently taught in schools, which makes it the perfect choice for Belflower’s play. Many of us will have encountered The Crucible at some point, quite possibly at a formative age like her characters, and the lessons we take from the play tell us a lot about our current society and views on gender, truth and power. For example, whether we might now see a power imbalance in the relationship between John and Abigail.

It’s definitely a play that – like in its story! – prompts strong reactions and fiery debates among audiences. How we interpret art and relate it to our own lives is very much the prevailing theme of Belflower’s show, and those ideas are also baked into the form of it. Prepare to engage, argue, cheer and even cry as the story reaches its extraordinary conclusion.

Book John Proctor Is the Villain tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Main photo credit and inset: John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway. (Photos by Julieta Cervantes). Inset: The Crucible at Shakespeare's Globe, The Crucible at the National Theatre (Photos by Marc Brenner, Johan Persson)