By Jacqueline Risch

TPA doesn’t truck with the devil, but in the senior class’s productions of The Crucible, many students got the chance to fall under a Salem witch’s spell! This year’s seniors told the story of a young Abigail Williams crying witchcraft upon Elizabeth Proctor to signify the halfway point of their final year while managing to bond and laugh with one another along the way.

After the first class’s production, Oliver Ricken, who played John Proctor, said “It was such an educational experience. It was the first time I’ve ever had a lead role, so it was great to learn how to play one, and interact with my peers in a way that really brought us closer together as a class.” While he believes the cast could have improved overall, Oliver said he was proud when “the cast began to pull everything together in the last few days before the show. [They] worked really hard.” Oliver adds, “Our first scene was very good. Act one, scene one, I thought, went perfectly.”

In the second class’s rendering of the play, actress Grace Fraser who plays Abigail Williams, mentions that “while it was really exhausting work, it was satisfying [to perform] and bond with other classmates. I really have a better idea of how to explore a character and explore a different side of myself.”

In addition, Rochelle Lilly, who plays Mr. Danforth, said “We were all very stressed, but honestly it made [the class] a whole lot closer. We tended to understand that even though someone may have a smaller part, or a larger part, we are all in this together, and we have to help one another in group scenes if we forget something. We can’t let the negativity define our acting.”

To Rochelle, “The best part of the play is the ending of the courtroom scene. Everyone is yelling at each other, and Proctor screams ‘God is dead.’ Its just a very chaotic and amusing scene. Actually getting to see the contention and mistrust from characters allows you to realize the real injustice actually being done in the play.”

One of the funniest moments of the play that everyone agreed on was when Giles Corey yells “A fart on you, Thomas Putnam!” “The fact that that is a genuine line in the play, and not the actor improvising or anything, is just hilarious,” says Rochelle. Funny enough, the seniors still use that line in daily speech, along with the lines “I spy a poppet” and “the deputy governor has arrived.”

To the entire senior class, the play has truly been both an academic journey, and an entertaining experience they will never forget.