Overview
It’s Salem, 1691. Nine year-old Betty Parris and eleven year-old Abigail Williams’ churn butter, play with poppets, and whisper at night while strange noises emanate from The Woods in the darkness. As fourteen-year-old Mercy Lewis declares, “Satan is everywhere.” When Abigail starts working for a local farmer, John Proctor, the children’s world is turned upside down…THE GOOD JOHN PROCTOR reimagines the year leading up to the infamous Salem Witch Trials through the eyes of the girls at the center of it all.
Casting & Production
Casting
BETTY PARRIS — Age 9.5
ABIGAIL WILLIAMS — Age 11
MERCY LEWIS — Age 14
MARY WARREN — Age 18
Casting Note:
All roles should be played by adults over the age of 18. The actors should embody the spirit of children, but they should not be actual children.
All characters should be played by AFAB actors. The character of Abigail is specifically nonbinary and should be played by a nonbinary performer.
Setting
Place
Salem, Massachusetts
Time
1691, later 1706
Reviews
“Talene Monahon’s deft, wicked play… shrouded in New England gloom, manage[s] its own witchcraft: a thrilling new perspective on the Salem girls’ adolescent minds, revealing their yearning for mystery, and the pernicious influence of the men who desire them. The finest example yet of the recent mania for modern vernacular in old-timey settings, Monahon’s play was comic line by line, but the cumulative effect was horror.”
—The New Yorker
“Monahon’s playful and precise ear for the rhythms of adolescent dialogue is among the chief pleasures of THE GOOD JOHN PROCTOR.”
—The New York Times
Media
