Audition Information

Auditions for The Crucible will be held on April 6 at Western Oaks Baptist Church at 5345 Old Jacksonville Road in Springfield.  To schedule an audition time, please email the director at carlyshank@yahoo.com.  Walk-in auditionees will also be welcome on that date.  Those auditioning do not need to prepare anything in advance, but some familiarity with the play is recommended.

Rehearsals for The Crucible will begin May 13.  Rehearsals will be held in Springfield and at New Salem.

Roles:


Tituba - Reverend Parris' slave, brought to Massachussettes from Barbados

Reverend Samuel Parris - Pastor to the Puritanical community of Salem; a weak, paranoid, and suspicious demagogue

Abigail Williams - 17-year-old niece of Reverend Parris; malicious, vengeful

Susanna Walcott - A confidant of Abigail, somewhat younger than her; nervous, hurried

Betty Parris - Daughter of Reverend Parris, younger than Abigail; more childlike than the other girls

Ann Putnam - Parishoner of Reverend Parris, mother to one of the ailing teenage girls; suspicious and paranoid

Thomas Putnam - Parishoner of Reverend Parris, father to one of the ailing teenage girls; longtime resident of Salem whose actions are driven by greed and fear

Mercy Lewis - 18 years old; slovenly, merciless

Mary Warren - 17-year-old servant of Proctor; subserviant, naïve, lonely, and pliable

John Proctor - A hard-working Salem farmer; the voice of reason and justice in Salem, sharply intelligent and witty at times, questions whether he is a moral man

Rebecca Nurse - 72 years old with white hair and a walking stick; one of the most noble and well-respected citizens of Salem, kindly and sane, the martyr of the play

Giles Corey - 83 years old, knotted with muscle; canny, inquisitive, still powerful, a comic figure whose fate turns tragic

Reverend John Hale - A religious scholar from Beverly; his approach to the accusations of witchcraft shifts from precise intellectuality to disillusionment through the course of the play

Elizabeth Proctor - Wife of John Proctor; shares her husband's strict adherence to justice and moral principles, has great confidence in her own morality, can be a cold and demanding woman

Francis Nurse - Husband of Rebecca Nurse, a well-respected wealthy landowner

John Willard - Guard at the jail cell

Ezekiel Cheever - Clerk of the court who serves warrants

Deputy Governor Danforth - A grave man in his 60s who presides over the Salem witch trials; stern yet practical, interested in preserving the dignity and stature of the court

Judge Hathorne - Largely subservient to Deputy Governor Danforth, applying the same tortured reasoning to the charges of witchcraft

Welcome to all things The Crucible

This summer, New Salem's Theatre in the Park will produce The Crucible.  This classic American drama by Arthur Miller is a fictional retelling of the events surrounding the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials of 1692.  Written during the Joseph McCarthy communist trials of the 1950s, the play serves as an allegory for those events and for other "witch hunts" of our past and present America.

The Crucible has long been on a short list of directing "dream projects" for me.  I look forward to a shared theatrical experience with actors, designers, and audience.  Stay tuned here for more information as it becomes available, providing context for the play and for our local production.

The Crucible will run June 28-30 and July 4-6, 2013 at 8 p.m. at Theatre in the Park.  Auditions will be held Saturday, April 6.  More information will be posted here soon.

Carly Shank

Director