Don’t you love when you are pleasantly surprised?!

Broadway presented me with a fabulous gift this week..

I bought a ticket to see John Proctor Is The Villain and it was fantastic.

In fact, yesterday, the play, John Proctor Is the Villain, received a total of 7 nominations, including Best Play and Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame is nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play.

Who knew that John Proctor, yes, that John Proctor from The Crucible, would end up the center of a sharp, hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt Broadway play featuring a cast young enough to still be on their parents’ cellphone plans.

John Proctor Is the Villain is set in a modern-day high school in rural Georgia, where the AP Lit class is grappling with Arthur Miller’s classic.

Do not allow the syllabus to fool you. This show has more twists, laughs, and teachable moments than a semester’s worth of pop quizzes.

The play takes the classics and flips them with TikTok speed, wit and just the right dose of existential teenage angst.

The cast? So talented it’s borderline unfair. These young performers manage to channel hormonal chaos, righteous rage and moments of raw vulnerability while also nailing their comic timing with the precision of a Netflix stand-up special.

There is sass, soul, intellect and characters who might be more aware than you would expect from small town southern girls

The dialogue flies fast and furious, like a Twitter thread on feminism. At one point, I nearly choked on my overpriced Twizzlers from laughing only to be emotionally sucker-punched five minutes later by a monologue that made me want to text my high school English teacher.

The play is smart, funny and not afraid to ask big questions about power, truth and adult morality

John Proctor is a mesmerizing Broadway moment.

Think The Crucible meets Mean Girls.

Go see it.

Bring your inner high schooler dancing to a Taylor Swift soundtrack persona. The play captures the way pop music is ingrained into the vernacular of these teenage girls with lyrical references to Swift, Beyonce and Lorde sprinkled throughout.

John Proctor Is The Villain. Booth Theatre 222 West 45th Street New York City. Running time 100 minutes with no intermission. The play began previews at the Booth Theatre on March 20th and is currently running through July 6th, 2025.