The Crucible

Friday, November 13 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 14 at 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 15 at 8:00 p.m.

Bijou Theatre
803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville TN.

UT Opera Theatre and UT Symphony Orchestra present Robert Ward’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera based on the play by Arthur Miller. Libretto by Benard Stambler. Directed by Carroll Freeman and conducted by Kevin Class.

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Cast

REVEREND SAMUEL PARRIS.......................... Erik Lickiss (Stefan Barner)
BETTY PARRIS............................ Whitney Hansen, Ksenia Berestovskaya
TITUBA....Denisha Ballew, LaSaundra Brown (Yasameen Hoffman-Shahin)
ABIGAIL WILLIAMS..... Valerie Haber, Rachel Anne Moore (Clarisse Colao)
SUSANNA WALCOTT..................................... Amanda Tittle, Hilary Reese
ANN PUTNAM.............................................. Jessica Cates, Paige Patrick
THOMAS PUTNAM........................................................ Evan Broadhead
REBECCA NURSE............................... Maureen Sutliff (Corinne Stevens)
FRANCIS NURSE.............................................................. Paul Johnson
GILES COREY...................................... Jonathon Subia (Nicholas Gulick)
JOHN PROCTOR............................................... Jesse Stock, Seth Maples
REVEREND JOHN HALE....................... Andrew Gilchrist (Evan Broadhead)
ELIZABETH PROCTOR....... Leah Serr, Corinne Stevens (Whitney Hansen)
The PROCTOR sons.... Cameron Ramsey, Brady Ramsey, Garrett Ramsey
MARY WARREN..................................... Anna Eschbach, Sarah Hoeppner
EZEKIEL CHEEVER........................ Nicholas Gulick, Thomas Isaac Collins
JUDGE DANFORTH....................................... Stefan Barner, Cody Boling
RUTH PUTNAM............................................................... Clarisse Colao
BRIDGET BOOTH.............................................................. Alyssa Scott
MARTHA SHELDON.............................................................. Cara White
LYDIA BIBBER................................................................. Carrie Nicely
FAITH CHURCHILL..................................................... Mariel Westervelt
MERCY LEWIS................................................................ Lauren Brown
NAOMI GOODHALL....................................................... Bethany Maples
ROSE FOSTER................................................................... Raeh Burns
JOHANNA DOD.......................... Whitney Hansen, Ksenia Berestovskaya
MARGARET HILL......................................... Amanda Tittle, Hilary Reese
BEULAH HUBBARD.................................................... Marianne Stevens
FREE WILKINS............................................. Yasameen Hoffman-Shahin DEPUTY OF THE COURT....................................................... Zack Liston
SARAH GOOD.................................. Robyn VanLeigh, Holly Wengenroth

Synopsis

ACT I:  Reverend Samuel Parris is distraught about the coma-like condition of his daughter Betty since he discovered her and her cousin Abigail dancing in the woods the night before.  His servant Tituba asks of Betty but is angrily sent away.  As the town is whispering of witchcraft, Abigail encourages her uncle to make a public denial.  He questions her about her mysterious dismissal from the Proctors’ home, but Abigail denies any wrongdoing, attributing her dismissal to Elizabeth Proctor’s mistreatment.  The Putnams enter to report that their Ruth is stricken like Betty and that they have sent to Beverly for Reverend Hale, known for discovering witches.  As Parris, fearful of any suspicion of witchcraft in his own household, argues the need for Hale, Rebecca and Francis Nurse enter with Giles Corey.  Rebecca is comforting, but old Giles scoffs at the girls’ illness.  When Putnam insists that witches are at work in Salem, Giles accuses him of using a witch scare to defraud his neighbors of their land.  John Proctor’s entrance only exacerbates the quarrel; Rebecca chides them for squabbling in this house of affliction.  After Giles and John leave, the remaining guests sing a psalm to beseech God’s help.  With an unearthly shriek Betty, awakened by the rousing chorus, tries to jump out the window.  As all struggle to restrain Betty, Hale enters, calming them with an air of authority and metho-dically beginning his inquiry.  He learns that Tituba was also present at the dancing and knows conjuring, according to Ann Putnam.  Tituba is sent for, and Abigail, who has been under severe inquisition by Hale, lashes out, accusing Tituba of compacting with the Devil.  Tituba, over-whelmed by the sternness of Hale and the malevolence of Parris and the Putnams, finally confesses that she has been visited by the Devil but denies that he has persuaded her into any sin.  For a few moments she frightens Parris and the Putnams with a heartfelt fantasy of the hellish power to bring them harm.  With Tituba’s confession the spell over Betty is broken.  All return to the psalm in great thanksgiving, while Abby, envying the attention now being given to Tituba, hysterically repents her own compact with the Devil and visibly receives an answer to her prayer for forgiveness and for a call to mark out others of the Devil’s crew.

ACT II:  John Proctor comes home from the fields to find his wife Elizabeth listless and moody.  The witch trials have become an aggravation of her domestic troubles with Abby at the center of both.  She insists that John expose Abby’s fraud to Judge Danforth; his reluctance to do so worries her that he may still have feelings for Abby.  John is doubly threatened by her suggestion:  he has no witness to what Abby told him, and the hysterical girl could avenge herself by revealing John’s lecherous acts with her.  Regardless, he is frustrated with Elizabeth’s judg-mental attitude, but she avers that Abby cannot accuse him of adultery without damning herself.  If John doesn’t tear Abby from his heart, she will never give up hope of eventually having him herself.  Mary Warren enters furtively from her day at court as one of Abby’s crew of witch-finders.  She weeps that the number of those arrested has tripled and that Goody Osburn has been condemned to hang!  She is truly troubled by her own part in it, but the mob excitement in the courtroom turns her into a hysterical accuser even against her will.  When John threatens to whip her if she returns to the court, she blurts out that Elizabeth herself has been mentioned in court and that only Mary’s defense prevented an outright accusation.  Elizabeth is sure that Abby is behind this and once more pleads with John to go to court.  Reverend Hale and John Cheever enter with a warrant for Goody Proctor’s arrest:  that very evening Abby charged Elizabeth with using a witch’s poppet to kill her.  John makes Mary acknowledge that the poppet (subsequently found) is hers, not Elizabeth’s, but Hale, although deeply troubled by these new directions of the witch-hunts, feels that he must arrest Elizabeth for examination.  When Elizabeth is escorted away, John turns violently on Mary, commanding her to tell her story in court even though it may provoke a charge of adultery from Abby and ruin both Abby and John completely.

ACT III, Scene 1:  Abby, with a mixture of scheming but passionate love for John and a growing mystical—and delusional—belief in her mission, tries to persuade John to abandon Elizabeth and join her in the holy work of cleansing this corrupt town.  Instead, he threatens to expose her fraud if she doesn’t free the town of the curse of her foolish wickedness.  She defies him and threatens that any misfortune that befalls Elizabeth will be his fault.

ACT III, Scene 2:  Judge Danforth’s invocation in court reveals the strength and fervor of his conviction that God’s will is working through him to cleanse the land of witches.  As court opens, Giles Corey testifies that an acquaintance has accused Thomas Putnam of a greedy plot to acquire his neighbors’ land.  Judge Danforth sends Corey to jail and torture for refusing to name his source.  Giles leaps at Putnam as the man responsible for his arrest and that of his wife and Rebecca Nurse.  Proctor presents Mary Warren’s deposition that the witch accusations are fraud and that Abby has perpetuated them in an effort to dispose of Elizabeth.  He then confesses the adultery that took place between Abby and himself.  When Elizabeth, ordinarily incapable of a lie, is brought in and fails to confirm John’s confession, Abigail counterattacks, charging that Mary herself has turned witch.  Mary, helpless and then hysterical, turns on John Proctor, accusing him of being the Devil’s man who has forced her into trying to overthrow the court.  All but Reverend Hale close in on Proctor with sadistic vindictiveness.

Act IV:  Tituba and Sarah Good, crazed by the rigors of imprisonment, sing of the Devil and his broken promises to them.  Abby comes into the prison, having bribed the jailer to permit Proctor to escape.  Though broken by months of prison and torture, John scornfully rejects the freedom and love she offers him.  Abby runs off weeping.  Hale and Parris try to persuade Danforth to postpone the executions of Proctor and Rebecca Nurse scheduled that morning:  Salem may break into open rebellion at the execution of such respected citizens.  Danforth indignantly refuses, but agrees to ask Elizabeth to persuade her husband to confess.  John is brought in and left alone with Elizabeth.  She tells him that Giles Corey has died, pressed to death rather than confess to witchcraft, but that many have confessed in order to save their lives.  John reluctantly admits his own wish to confess as long as it doesn’t make her think ill of him for lying.  Passionately she answers that it was her lie that doomed him and that she wants him alive.  Exultant, he shouts that he will confess.  Danforth, Hale, and Parris rejoice, for their various reasons, over John’s confession, and Parris tries to persuade Rebecca, who has been brought in on the way to the gallows, also to confess.  She refuses to damn herself with the lie.  John is asked to sign his confession to be exhibited before the town, but this is too much:  he has deeply shamed himself already by confessing, but he refuses to sign anything that will further shame him and his sons.  He tears up the document.  Danforth orders John and Rebecca to be led out to execution.  Hale pleads with Elizabeth to change John’s mind while there is yet time.  She refuses, “He has found his name and his goodness now; God forbid I take it from him.”

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