Theater News

Arthur Miller's The Crucible May Be Headed to Broadway With Tony Winner Sophie Okonedo

The production is planned for early next year.

Tony winner Sophie Okonedo may star in a 2016 Broadway production of The Crucible.
Tony winner Sophie Okonedo may star in a 2016 Broadway production of The Crucible.
(© David Gordon)

A production of the Arthur Miller classic The Crucible will grace Broadway in early 2016, according to an Actors' Equity casting notice. Prominent Broadway figure Scott Rudin (Fish in the Dark) is set to produce the play that has a first performance set for February 29 and no venue announced so far. The engagement is planned to end on July 17.

According to the casting notice's breakdown, the production is "seeking a diverse company. Unless specifically stated, characters are any ethnicity." The breakdown also specifies that the characters of John Proctor, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Proctor, Judge George Danforth, and Rev. John Hale have already been cast.

The Crucible is set in the tight-knit, Puritan town of Salem. The notice goes on to describe the plot as follows: "When a group of girls are discovered dancing in the woods and then immediately fall ill and no earthly cause can be identified, fear and suspicion begin to percolate in the small, isolated community, that something larger…may be to blame."

The play was first seen on Broadway in 1953 in a production at the Martin Beck Theatre. It has since seen four revivals, the most recent of which was a 2002 production featuring a cast that included Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, and Kristen Bell.

Though no official casting or creative team has been announced, a March Daily Mail article reported that Tony winner Sophie Okonedo would star in an upcoming New York production of The Crucible directed by Ivo van Hove (2015 Olivier Award winner for A View From the Bridge, New York Theater Workshop's recent Scenes From a Marriage). Rudin produced last season's Raisin in the Sun revival that won Okonedo her Tony Award.