CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, October 23, 2024

‘Stranger Things’ Star Sadie Sink Returns to Broadway in ‘John Proctor Is the Villain’

The New York Times: Sadie Sink, one of the breakout performers from “Stranger Things,” will star next spring in a new Broadway play about a group of high school students reading “The Crucible” while reckoning with the impact of the #MeToo movement.

5 comments:

Marion Mongello said...

When this info was released last week, my roommate and best friend Olivia (playing Beth in CMU’s John Proctor is the Villain, who is also a redhead and also an incredible actress,) our jaws were on the floor. I am a ride or die Stranger Things fan and I think Sadie Sink is a brilliant actress. I am itching to not only see the Carnegie Mellon production, but to see the rest of the cast list for the Broadway production, and most importantly: if there is a possibility for any of those two shows’ casts to overlap (Olivia Ruhnke manifestation.) I have been running lines with Olivia every week and I really like the writing of the script. I think the playwright does a good job of making the conversations sound grounded and organic, especially for a contemporary setting. It is so interesting to hear how intentional the “like”s and “um”s are.

Rachel L said...

I am really excited to get to see John Proctor is the Villain at CMU this year! I worked on my school’s production of The Crucible in the fall of 2019 when I was in eighth grade, and one of my core theatre memories is from that show. I think it will be interesting to see the perspective of high schoolers reading The Crucible in 2018 having done the same show one year later and three years younger than the characters are supposed to be. This article has also made me want to read The Crucible again. I wonder how it reads now, in the current political climate and with me being older, in comparison to how I understood it when I did the show. I’ll also be interested to see a comparison of how it reads in the current atmosphere to me and how the characters of John Proctor is the Villain view it as they are in the aftermath of the #metoo movement. So many interesting perspectives to consider and comparisons to make, I can’t wait to see this show!

Anonymous said...

WOW! It is so cool to see that a play being put on at CMU is making it’s way to broadway! The director of the broadway production of John Proctor Is The Villain is directed by the same person who directed The Outsiders on broadway. I haven’t seen the either but I am definitely going to see John Proctor Is The Villain because Sadie Sink is in it! I actually live five minutes away from her so I used to see her driving around in her red car! She is vert talented, as we have seen in Stranger Things, which I used to be obsessed with, and I very much look forward to the fifth season of the Netflix series. But I just think it is super cool that CMU is currently working on a show that is nearing it’s opening on broadway! Hopefully we can see some CMU students and alumni working on this production!

Lilly Resnick said...

WOW! It is so cool to see that a play being put on at CMU is making it’s way to broadway! The director of the broadway production of John Proctor Is The Villain is directed by the same person who directed The Outsiders on broadway. I haven’t seen the either but I am definitely going to see John Proctor Is The Villain because Sadie Sink is in it! I actually live five minutes away from her so I used to see her driving around in her red car! She is vert talented, as we have seen in Stranger Things, which I used to be obsessed with, and I very much look forward to the fifth season of the Netflix series. But I just think it is super cool that CMU is currently working on a show that is nearing it’s opening on broadway! Hopefully we can see some CMU students and alumni working on this production!

Eliza Krigsman said...

John Proctor is the Villain looks incredibly interesting, and I’m glad CMU is putting it on this year. I didn’t even realize Broadway was, too! I knew very little about the play before reading this article, and the way it started on the nonprofessional level intrigued me. I am similarly ignorant of The Crucible, though I’ve loved Arthur Miller’s works before. The premise itself of John Proctor is the Villain centers around high schoolers in 2018 grappling with the MeToo movement while putting on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible - which I’ve been meaning to read for a while now. I took this article as a jumping off point in looking into both John Proctor is the Villain and The Crucible, and the parallels between the characters’ lives is a multifaceted one. I was able to read the first few pages of John Proctor is the Villain, and it feels very modern in juxtaposition to the Crucible. I think it’s a great way to familiarize audiences with the lessons and ideas of the arguably less accessible The Crucible.