The Elon University Department of Performing Arts will present Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” from Thursday, April 24 through Sunday, April 27 in McCrary Theatre, located in the Elon University Center for the Arts on campus. Shows start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The play, directed by Fred Rubeck, assistant professor of fine arts, features a 24-person cast and marks the first time an Arthur Miller production has been performed at Elon. Rubeck called the play one of the most challenging pieces he has ever directed. He has revisited this American classic with an expressionist approach to the play’s design elements, rather than simple realism, in hopes of heightening the emotional connection of the audience and the characters.
“The Crucible” won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1953, and is a powerful drama about the seventeenth-century witchcraft frenzy in Salem, Mass. Inspired in part by the Joseph McCarthy Communist hearings of the 1950s, Miller’s play is at once a gripping historical play and a timely parable of contemporary society’s bigotry, fear, hatred and deceit. “We may not be searching for witches today, but I think our concern over terrorism and how we feel about different ethnic groups and individuals relates to the play as well,” says Rubeck.
Tickets for the performance are $10, or free for those with valid Elon identification. Tickets may be purchased by calling the McCrary Theatre box office at (336) 278-5610. The box office is open from 12:30 p.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday.
-30-