JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN Will Welcome 300 New York High School Students This Week
In partnership with the learning platform Quizlet the event will take place on Wednesday May 7.
By: Stephi Wild May. 05, 2025
John Proctor Is the Villain will welcome 300 New York City public high school students to an upcoming performance. In partnership with the learning platform Quizlet, the new play, by Kimberly Belflower and starring Sadie Sink, will host the event on Wednesday May 7.
Mallory O’Brien, Head of Social at Quizlet said, “Partnering with John Proctor Is the Villain just made sense for us — it’s where culture, education, and supporting student voices intersect. At Quizlet, our goal is to be your learning companion for life, which means showing up whenever and wherever meaningful learning happens. We're honored to support this special opportunity to bring classroom content to life, bridging curriculum with real-world experiences, especially for students who may be seeing live theatre for the first time."
“A tremendous thank you to the producers of the thought-provoking John Proctor Is the Villain and Quizlet for enabling hundreds of NYC public school students to re-engage actively with a classic required text and on Broadway,” NYC Department of Education Director of Theater Peter Avery shared. “By providing these fully subsidized tickets to our teens, the show brings the page to the stage, reasserting the impact of theater literacy for our youth in their classrooms and in their lives.”
Performances for John Proctor Is the Villain, with direction by Tony Award winner Danya Taymor opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on April 14.
John Proctor Is the Villain stars Sadie Sink as ‘Shelby Holcomb’. She is joined by Nihar Duvvuri (Romeo + Juliet) as ‘Mason Adams,’ Tony Award winner Gabriel Ebert (Matilda) as ‘Carter Smith,’ Molly Griggs (Hello, Dolly!) as ‘Bailey Gallagher,’ Maggie Kuntz (The Outsiders) as ‘Ivy Watkins,’ Hagan Oliveras (Our Town) as ‘Lee Turner,’ Morgan Scott (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding) as ‘Nell Shaw,’ Tony Award nominee Fina Strazza (Matilda) as ‘Beth Powell,’ and Drama Desk nominee Amalia Yoo (No Hard Feelings) as ‘Raelynn Nix.’ Understudies are Noah Pacht, Fiona Robberson, Shian Tomlinson, Garrett Young, and Victoria Vourkoutiotis.
In John Proctor Is the Villain, five young women – fueled by pop music, optimism, and fury – clash with their school, their Georgia town, and the stories they've been instructed to believe. As their class dissects The Crucible, they begin to question who we deem heroic, who we call a villain, and who gets burned in the process. With biting humor and a beating heart, this explosive new play – “one of the most anticipated of the season” (The New York Times) – shines a blazing spotlight on the eternal fight to claim your own narrative in a world that’s still stuck in the past.
The creative team for John Proctor Is the Villain includes scenography by AMP featuring Teresa L. Williams; costume design by Sarah Laux; lighting design by Tony Award winner Natasha Katz; sound design and original composition by Tony Award nominee Palmer Hefferan; projection design by Tony Award nominee Hannah Wasileski; hair & makeup design by J. Jared Janas; movement direction by Tilly Evans-Krueger; intimacy coordination by Ann James; voice, text and dialect coaching by Gigi Buffington; dramaturgy by Lauren Halvorsen; production stage management by Kamra A. Jacobs; and casting by Taylor Williams.
