THE CRUCIBLE ~ A Play In Four Acts by Arthur Miller
Prologue: Salem, Massachusetts, in the spring of the year 1692. A wood, night.
Act One: A small upper bedroom in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, the next evening.
Act Two, Scene 1: The common room of John Proctor's house, eight days later.
Act Two, Scene 2: A wood, night. One month later.
15-Minute Intermission
Act Three: General Court, the Salem meeting house. The next day.
Act Four: The Salem meeting house. Three months later. Early morning.
"A Note On The Historical Accuracy Of This Play" by Arthur Miller
This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. Dramatic purposes have sometimes required many characters to be fused into one; the number of girls involved in the "crying-out" has been reduced; Abigail's age has been raised; while there were several judges of almost equal authority, I have symbolized them all in Danforth. However, I believe that the audience will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. The fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model, and there is no one in the drama who did not play a similar - and in some cases exactly the same - role in history.
As for the characters of the persons, little is known about most of them excepting what may be surmised from a few letters, the trial record, certain broadsides written at the time, and references to their conduct in sources of varying reliability. They may therefore be taken as creations of my own, drawn to the best of my ability in conformity with their known behavior.
