It's Theater Season — Pace Presents 'The Crucible'

Walk into the Fine Arts Center any night this week and you'll find a production deep in tech week — set pieces being adjusted under work lights, the costume team chasing down last-minute alterations, and a cast that's been living with Arthur Miller's words for two months now.

Pace's fall production of The Crucible opens Friday.

Why this play, why now

Director Mr. Roberts, in his fourth year leading the upper school program, said the choice was deliberate. "It's a play about how communities turn on each other when fear takes over. That's a conversation worth having in any decade."

The script, written in 1953 as a barely-veiled response to the McCarthy hearings, has been a high-school theater staple for decades — and a notoriously difficult one. The language is dense, the emotional beats are heavy, and the ensemble has to carry it together.

The cast

The leads anchor a 22-person ensemble, with two understudies who have been rehearsing alongside the principals. The cast is split fairly evenly between upperclassmen and underclassmen, with several freshmen making their main-stage debuts.

What's been striking, several cast members said, is the silence in the room during rehearsals — even when scenes aren't going well, no one is on their phone. "It's a play that demands you stay present," senior Bennett Cummings said.

Show information

• Dates: Friday-Saturday this week, with a Sunday matinee
• Location: Pace Fine Arts Center
• Tickets: Free for Pace students with ID; $10 general admission at the door

The production runs roughly two hours and fifteen minutes with one intermission. Knightly News will publish a full review on Monday.