Wilbury Group Kicks Off 2019 With Regional Premiere Of THE BURN and MORE WEIGHT

The Wilbury Theatre Group kicks off the New Year with the New England premiere of Philip Dawkins' The Burn, presented in conversation with More Weight: A Derivative New Work inspired by Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' by director Logan Serabian. Performances for The Burn and More Weight are scheduled for January 10 - February 3, 2019.

Originally commissioned by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre for the 2017/18 season, Philip Dawkins' The Burn is a thrilling blend of Arthur Miller's The Crucible and the online world that serves as modern telling of the way social media blurs the lines of truth and fiction and paves the way for a new kind of witch hunt in today's world.
Written and conceived by Logan Serabian, More Weight is a minimalistic work inspired by Arthur Miller's original text that at a breakneck pace re-tells the entire original Salem witch trials with just five actors.

"Our goal with this project was to look at persecution through a modern lens," said Wilbury Artistic Director Josh Short. "The Burn is a thrilling new play that puts The Crucible into a modern high school classroom fraught with cyberbullying and a 'mean girls' mentality. As a counter-point to Philip's very modern telling, Logan and the cast of The Burn have developed More Weight as a second piece that boils the original tale of the Salem Witch Trials into a fast-paced ride through Salem, Massachusetts 1962. Together these pieces complement each other beautifully and engage audiences in a conversation about Witch Hunts, past and present."

THE BURN and MORE WEIGHT are presented January 10 - February 3 at The Wilbury Theatre Group, 40 Sonoma Court, Providence RI. Tickets are $15-$38. For the complete performance schedule call 401.400.7100 or visit The Wilbury Group online at thewilburygroup.org/the-burn or thewilburygroup.org/more-weight

Written in response to the spread of McCarthyism, Arthur Miller's classic work The Crucible explores a paranoid witch hunt and its very real consequences; inspired by this epic drama comes the Wilbury Group's regional premiere of Philip Dawkins's The Burn, a modern telling of the way social media blurs the lines of truth and fiction and paves the way for new kinds of witch hunts in 2018. Mercedes is an outsider. Tara makes sure she knows it. When a high school production of The Crucible forces them together, tensions escalate into acts of bullying-both online and off. Originally commissioned by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater for their 2017/18 season and directed by Logan Serabian for The Wilbury Group, The Burn is a thrilling new that play explores what happens to a teacher and his students when a classroom conflict turns into an online witch-hunt.

In his 1953 play The Crucible, playwright Arthur Miller employs a fictionalized account of Massachusetts Bay colonists accused of witchcraft in 1692 as a metaphor for government persecution of suspected communists during the mid-20th century. Presented by The Wilbury Group's new works development program Studio W and presented in conversation with Philip Dawkins's modern re-telling The Burn, director Logan Serabian and a cast of 5 actors explore the major themes of Miller's play and the Salem Witch Trials at a breakneck speed.

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