The Crucible Symposium

The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s parable of mass hysteria, is a portrait of the ordinary evils latent in any society, of mindless, hysterical persecution through ignorance, fear of ‘otherness’, and our capacity to serve ourselves above all others, making it one of the world’s most transcendent and important stories, in any age.

Damien Ryan’s intensive and detailed performance symposium on the play offers a rich opportunity for students to meet the characters, look beneath the play – at its language, characters, form, and theatricality – and discuss the big ideas with professional actors who have a long relationship with the play.

What does it mean to us now? Come and join the conversation. After all, we can stand back from these puritanical thinkers and feel safe from their ignorant, outdated superstitions and prejudices, but Miller’s very successful point is that we just can’t. The belief systems and modes of persecution might change, but the ignorance and willingness to hurt each other do not.

The Crucible illustrates these things at personal, familial, judicial, and political levels, and asks actors to give everything they have to tell it.