John Proctor Is the Villain

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE By Kimberly Belflower Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE "A vital, hilarious, thrilling, urgently necessary new play” The New York Times High school is a battleground in this funny and ferocious new Australian production of the Broadway and West End knockout John Proctor is the Villain , directed by Melbourne Theatre Company Artistic Director Anne Louise Sarks ( My Brilliant Career ). Masego Pitso ( Picnic at Hanging Rock ) stars in Kimberly Belflower's powder keg play about a group of young people studying The Crucible while navigating sex, gossip and fractured friendships in a small American town. Arthur Miller's classic takes on new resonance when shocking accusations are levelled in the classroom and the community takes sides, leaving the students to ponder the nature of power in art and in life. Updating Miller's portrait of mob hysteria for the social media age, Belflower gives us "the kind of heroes we actually need" ( New York Magazine ) – five teenagers just trying to work it out, hilarious and mad as hell. This is coming-of-age drama that isn't afraid to be thorny and provocative and just as complex as adolescence itself. Nominated for seven Tony Awards, John Proctor Is the Villain arrives in Australia as one of the world's most talked-about new plays and after a sold-out transfer to London's Royal Court, where it was hailed as "joyous, blazingly intelligent" ( Financial Times ) and "thrilling to watch" ( The New Statesman ).