The Crucible at Theatre on the James

The student-led theatre company finishes its 2023/2024 season with this disturbingly timeless play will play for only three performances. In the forest surrounding a small, isolated town, a group of teenage girls are caught dancing around a fire in the middle of the night, and thus begins the unraveling of the tightly guarded community of Salem. The leader of the girls, Abigail Williams, suddenly finds powerful people in the community paying attention to her words, and mixed with this newfound sense of power is an unsure diffidence on how to use it. As the girls’ accusations spiral out of control, old grudges and antagonisms flare, until no one is safe from the noose.