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“The Crucible” by Arthur Miller
“The Crucible” by Arthur Miller
Taube Atrium Theatre, War Memorial Building
CCSF Theatre Arts
Directed by Patricia Miller
Costumes Alexandra Volk; Lighting Jeffrey Kelly; Sound George Georges
April 19th and April 20th @2:00 pm; April 19 @7:30
Tickets at http://ccsf_crucible.eventbrite.com/ $15-$25.
Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history'; - and the American anti-communist purges led by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations. A depiction of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumor, The Crucible is also a powerful indictment of McCarthyism and the 'frontier mentality' of Cold War America or now. These themes still resonate today and need to be told by this passionate young and diverse performing company from CCSF Theatre Arts.
Playwright Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller Is recognized for his popular and award-winning plays, produced around the world. In 1965 he was the first American elected president of International PEN, for his work supporting free speech and fighting censorship, as well as encouraging translations for literature to travel beyond borders. In 2005 PEN America established the annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture to honor his lifelong commitment. Miller’s decades-long activism against wrongful conviction and capital punishment continues to inspire criminal justice reform and continues to inspire the public & artists seeking to make an impact.
Credits
Credits
Director Patricia Miller
Stage Manager Lana Goines
Assistant Director Richie Tavake
Lights Jeffrey Kelly
Sound George Georges
Costumes Alexandria Volk
Props Violet Sanders, A. Volk
Dramaturgy Dr. Ryan C. Smith
Forest Chorus Daryl Henline
Psalm Chorus Vincente Mata Ocha, Ellyn Ginden
Outreach Rafael Musni, Monica Savini, Francis Roberts
Poster Design Jen Woo
Video Mitchell and Alex Spence
Music and Theatre Chair Madeline Mueller
Dean Erin Denney
Press Photos David Anderson
Huge Thanks to
BEMA Dana Labrecque, Misha Antonich;
Graphic Arts/Emerge Studio Patricia Chytrowski, John Seckman, Colin Hall
Dance Jeanette Jing Male
CCSF Facilities and Bookkeeping
Taube Atrium Crew Jamahn Lee, Tim Tunks
Las Postitas Theatre Department
Tasa Gleason and Stagecraft: Jennifer, Sam, Miles, Katherine and friends
Cast Bios
Cast Bios
Patricia Miller
Director and Producer
Based in London/San Francisco, Patricia brings a diversity of training and approaches to theatre directing, teaching and acting. She is interested in a strong dynamic between text work and physical theatre techniques across many genres raging from classics with strong text work integrated with physical theatre techniques to new play development, modern works and live arts genres (performance, circus, ritual and opera,). She holds an MFA in Directing from UC Davis; BA from Manchester University; MA from Hull University.
U.S. directing credits include Berkeley Rep; The Magic Theatre; Ashby Stage for Swirl Media; Tides Theatre for Pollinator Arts; UC Riverside ; NCTC; Exit Theatre and staged a plays onboard a bus and in abandoned buildings.
U.K. directing credits include New Playwrights Festival, London; Riverside Studios, London; Contact Theatre, Manchester and the Edinburgh Festival. Also Mountview Theatre School;
National Youth Theatre of Great Britain; Studio School, London.
Acting credits include Magic Theatre, Theatreworks, New Conservatory, Shotgun Players, Boxcar, Edinburgh Festival, London and European venues and member of ensembles Pacific
Playback and Mystic Family Circus/Cirque du Soleil.
Teaching/ directing credits includes Berkeley Rep; UC Riverside, UC Davis, Berkeley City College, San Francisco City College, California Shakespeare Festival, Aurora Theatre Education
and Berkeley Rep.
Casting includes Aurora; Magic; Playwrights Foundation; Rhino; Boxcar.
Former Staff Member at Theatre Bay Area; Aurora Theatre; Magic Theatre; Mountview Theatre School, London.
Richie Tavake
Rev John Hale, Assistant Director.
Richie Tavake is an actor and voice actor from San Francisco currently signed to Heyman Talent. He has been in shows such as American Night the Ballad of Juan Jose as the lead Juan Jose (2018). In voice-over he has worked on projects for Bloody FM such as audio dramas like The Dead (2024), Strings of Fate (2025) and just made his video game debut as the lead character Jessie in the upcoming game Short Snow coming out this year (2025). He’s also done commercial voice-over for the City of Berkeley.
https://www.richard-tavake.com/
Lana Goines
Stage Manager
Eitan Adler
Assistant Stage Manager
Eitan is an experienced improviser. He performed several comedic and theatrical improv performances. Most recently he performed Improvised Sci Fi and "This Ordinary Life". He has trained in multiple improvisation and acting techniques. He is excited to explore the world of scripted acting and theatrical tech as well.
https://eitanadler.com
Sherrif Althaf
John Proctor
Seul Ki
Elizabeth Proctor
Seul Ki is a Korean-born, San Francisco-based actor and improvisor whose favorite roles include Lillian Okamura in After the War Blues (Z Space / CCSF), Alyssa in The Assistant (Bindlestiff), and has appeared in various Musical Improv shows. She received her Acting Certificate from CCSF last year and continues to further hone her skills in acting, improv, and voice. Seul would like to thank the incredible cast and crew members of this show and her family, who have been the cornerstone of her acting journey.
Mark Leslie
Reverend Parris
Mark is excited to be making his on stage CCSF stage debut in the role of Reverend Parris. Other credits include roles in several student film project, a voice over role in CCSF’s 2022 production of Animal Farm, and most recently, stage managed last year’s production of After the War Blues. He’d like to thank the cast and crew for their exceptional support and community during this process of bring Arthur Miller’s, Crucible, back to life.
https://www.mark-leslie.com
Richie
Helen Wong
Rafael Musni
Deputy Governor DANFORTH
Rafael Musni is a voice-over and commercial actor and MC with an acting certificate from CCSF. For his 20th play, given the deteriorating state of democracy, Rafael is performing Crucible as a warning to resist the totalitarian takeover.
https://www.instagram.com/rafaelmusni/
David Anderson
Giles Corey
David Anderson is a San Francisco-based filmmaker. Anderson’s most recent film, Photo Center, won the award for Best Documentary at the 2024 City Shorts Film Festival in San Francisco and was featured in the 2023 Fine Arts Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. Anderson has a BA in Journalism from Auburn University and an AA in Cinema Production from City College of San Francisco.
https://davidanderson.us
Charles Zuckerman
Thomas Putnam
Charles Zuckerman is excited to return to acting playing Thommas Putnam in The Crucible. He is currently completing his acting certificate at CCSF with an eye towards fulfilling a lifelong ambition as a performer. This performance is his return to the state after a 40 year hiatus. He was born in Boston MA and has travelled extensively including living in Niger, Germany, Romania. He attended school at The University of Wisconsin and The University of Texas. He is a retired actor and current ultramarathon runner.
Ellyn Ginden
Ann Putnam
Ellyn has been in 3 plays produced by Ccsf. Animal farm in 2021 Big love in 2023 and now the crucible in 2025.
Chi Wan Lee
John Willard
Chi wan lee is a actor, director producer, thathas acted couple ccsf plays including Animal farm, Bihg Love, after war blues, and directed produced and acted in shows in Bindle stiff here in San Francisco and stage manage a show in Clarion music center
Jamari Mcgee
Cheever
Jamari is thrilled to back on stage with CCSF. Jamari has been involved in a lot of a lot musical theatre productions such as Hairspray, Legally Blonde and Guys and Dolls. The Crucible is one of Jamari’s favorite plays and he is ecstatic to be performing this amazing show for you.
Eden Sebiaa
Hopkins
Eden M. Sebiaa grew up aspiring acting and standup comedy. He became an actor over two years ago. He grew up in Richmond CA, obtained a B.A in Politics from UC Santa Cruz (2009), lived briefly in Brooklyn, NY (2012) and Orange County (2013). Most of his professional career entailed Customer Relationship, Restauranteur and Digital Marketing. Acting is now a primary focus of his career. His acting experience consists of Acting and Improvisation classes taken at CCSF with Patricia Miller. The Crucible is his first acting gig and hopes to be part of many productions in the near future. Eden would like thank his parents for their unwavering love and support, nephews Adam and Amir and niece Brianna for their continuous love and care. He would also like to thank his first and current acting teacher Patricia Miller for being tough on him and supportive when he needed it most. And of course all the cast members who made this experience so exciting.
edensebiaa@gmail.com
Vicente Mata Ochoa
Francis Nurse
The Crucible marks Vicente’s first performance in the theater as an actor. A musician and polyglot his whole life, he had his eye set on theater stage since he was a child. Many thanks to Dir. Patricia Miller for believing in him; Tom Bentley-Fisher, Miranda Bentley and Heidi Carlsen for introducing him to the world of acting; his family, and the whole cast of this production. Find Vicente in Lamplighter’s upcoming operetta, The Sorcerer, in May.
Diane Merlino
Rebecca Nurse
Diane Merlino is a dramatic and comedic actor, singer, writer and musical event producer. Her work has included lead and supporting roles in plays, musical theater, features, short films and commercials. As a creative writer and performer, Diane created produced her own one-person show featuring original monologues and songs. Diane is delighted to be part of the talented and diverse cast of The Crucible and to work again under the direction of Patricia Miller.
dianemerlino@comcast.net
Gina White
Betty Parris
Gina White is an actress and model hailing from San Francisco. She started musical theatre productions at 16 years old and kept venturing out and auditioning for other projects. Gina was a recurring extra for “13 reasons why season 1”. Last spring returned to CCSF to play Russian refugee Olga Mikholes in “After The War Blues”. She is very excited to portray a young Betty Parris in the Crucible and hope everyone enjoys the show.
Cindy Silva
Abigail Williams
Cindy Silva is an actor and visual artist based in San Francisco, California. She is excited to be part of her first production with CCSF. She is currently working toward completing her CCSF Acting Certificate.
IG: @cindysilvacreations
Sophie Bobadilla
Mary Warren
Sophie Bobadilla is an actor and performer based in San Francisco, where she was born and raised. She earned her BA in Theatre from Cal State Fullerton, graduating with Magna Cum Laude honors. Her recent performance credits include Creative Arts Dance Show 2024 (City College of San Francisco), House of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée (Meyer2Meyer Entertainment), The Boys and The Nuns (Cal State Fullerton, Latiné Musical Theatre Lab), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cal State Fullerton). Outside of theatre, Sophie also holds a BA in Linguistics. Sophie thanks her family for their endless love and support!
sophiebobadilla.com
Ben Duran
Villager #2
Ben Duran is currently a filmmaking and acting student at CCSF. He acted briefly in high school productions of "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown," and a variety student showcase. He is excited to be returning to the stage.
Juan Cavalleiro
Villager/Guard #1
Juan Cavalleiro is a Brazilian visual artist and a student of Improv and filmmaking at CCSF, making his U.S. theater debut with this production. With a design background and a passion for storytelling, he brings creative energy to the stage and is excited to embark on this journey with a talented team.
ac.jc.arts@gmail.com
Xianna Rodriguez
Susanna Walcott
Xianna Rodriguez is a San Francisco based actor and a martial artist (she practices Karate). She has been in various productions at CCSF: Cradle Will Rock, American Night, the Ballad of Juan Jose, a show called Can You See Me which was a collection of short scenes from various plays, and more recently, The Crucible.
Angie Ladino
Village girl
Angie is a Colombian actress, political scientist, and model with a deep passion for the performing arts. She has been immersed in theater and acting since childhood, with over 10 years of formal training in the field. Angie holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Marketing, and is currently pursuing an Acting Certificate at City College of San Francisco (CCSF). She has experience in television, theater, and runway modeling in Colombia, Argentina, and now in the U.S. This production marks her first time performing in a play entirely in English, a meaningful and exciting step in her artistic journey.
daianaraladino@gmail.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/daianaraa_/#
Yerly Palomino
Mercy Lewis
Yerly Palomino is a graduate of The Teatro Libre in partnership with Universidad Central in Colombia. She has performed in productions such as The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Richard III by William Shakespeare, Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega, and an adaptation of Innocent Eréndira by Gabriel García Márquez, among others. Yerly also has experience in contemporary dance. Passionate about bringing characters to life and surprising the audience, she embodies each role with depth and creativity. In The Crucible, she takes on the role of Mercy Lewis, exploring the complex dynamics of fear, desire, and manipulation in Salem.
The History Behind "The Crucible"
The History Behind "The Crucible"
by Dr. Ryan C. Smith
As a play which uses the past to critique the present, the subject matter and historical context of "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller has its own deeper story. Understanding the history and context of the Salem Witch Trials and the Second Red Scare is essential to appreciating the relevance of this piece in the present moment. This dramaturgy is meant to help further explain what that history is, why it matters, and how the story of Salem is relevant to our current times.
European Witch Hunts
Early modern Europe was a region beset by periodic witch hunts. Beginning in the mid 1400s CE, with the publication of the witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum, countless innocent people were accused of entering pacts with the Devil. Witch hunts would break out across Christian Europe for the next two hundred years.
The accused, who were predominantly women, were tested with methods like “dunking the witch”, a method which saw victims thrown into bodies of water, and finding a witch's mark, which could be anything from a birthmark to a mole or a pimple, and probing it with a variety of painful implements. Anyone who floated was guilty and executed while those who drowned were deemed innocent.
These witch hunts had deep roots in the social, political, and religious upheaval of the period. Religious dissent culminated in the Protestant Reformation and nearly two centuries of near-constant sectarian conflict. Regions like Germany & Austria, which were consumed by the Reformation’s wars like the bloody Thirty Years War and the near-century long Protestant Dutch struggle for independence from Catholic Spain, saw the highest levels of witch hunts during this period.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was first founded by a group of English Puritans in 1620 CE. They were religious dissidents who felt the Protestant Anglican Church had betrayed the Reformation & didn’t go far enough. These Puritans were also advocates of the rule of law, democratic governance, & supported universal education for men & women.
The Colony soon came into conflict with indigenous peoples and waged a series of genocidal campaigns against the Wampanoag and Massachuset culminating in King Philip’s War which began in 1675 CE and ended in 1678 CE. This conflict lasted three years, remains the bloodiest war in the history of New England, and upended every aspect of colonial life.
For the Puritans, the colony was the most Godly society on an Earth inundated in sin. From Europe came the plots of the false Christian sects while the Devil, often identified with Indigenous Americans, stalked the North American wilderness. This state of siege was central to their identity and way of life.
Salem 1692
Salem, like other sites of witch hunts, was a site of recent upheaval and conflict. In 1686 CE, the English monarchy attempted to exert more power over the New England colonies by sending a royal governor who was overthrown by a popular revolt three years later.
Salem itself had also recently undergone local elections and, as modern scholarship shows, many of the members of the losing faction wound up accusing many members of the winning side as well as the less well-off and anyone deemed undesirable. The condemned also lost their property, putting their families into poverty.
In contrast to many European witch hunts, the Salem witch trials scrupulously followed due process of the law though the cases depended on so-called spectral evidence. A total of 19 people were executed, one was tortured to death, four died in prison, and between 140 and 150 people were arrested and imprisoned.
Communism and the United States
The United States, in the 1930s and 1940s CE, was a society in a state of upheaval. The Russian Revolution had transformed the political landscape a decade prior to the Great Depression. These conditions inspired many Americans, like Lucille Ball, who sought a better world to join the Communist Party and other left-wing movements. Others became part of the growing trade union movement, participated in mutual aid networks, and in other ways struggled for a better world.
Even though the Soviet Union and communism in this time is most associated with the brutality of Joseph Stalin, American leftists in the Great Depression were largely unaware of what life was really like in the USSR and often held progressive politics. The Communist Party, for example, were the only group other than the NAACP who provided legal support for Black Americans accused of crimes under the Jim Crow system and, between 1936 and 1939, hundreds of American leftists joined the International Brigades to defend the Spanish Republic against Franco’s Nazi-backed military coup. These Communists saw their work as part of a greater struggle for collective liberation that was protected under the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and part of a long legacy stretching back to Washington and Lincoln.
The Second Red Scare
The Second Red Scare was a political panic which began in 1947 CE when President Truman signed an executive order requiring federal employees be screened for “totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive” associations. Members of labor unions, university faculty, artists, and public employees soon faced accusations of secret Communist sympathies and plotting against the United States. Elected officials like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon built their careers through supporting the Red Scare.
The Red Scare was executed across society by local loyalty review boards, local, state, and federal law enforcement investigations to the dramatic, televised hearings of Congressional bodies like the House Un-American Activities Committee. The accused were expected to name names and refusing to cooperate risked jail time & blacklisting from public sector or educational jobs. Aspects of the Red Scare linger to this day, like California’s Levering Act which bans members of the Communist Party and other “subversives” from working in any public sector positions.
Arthur Miller and the Red Scare
Arthur Miller is widely considered to be the greatest American playwright of the 20th century. He began his career while majoring in journalism at the University of Michigan before becoming a playwright and, after graduating, worked for a year in the New Deal-era Federal Theater Project before the Project was closed down in 1939 under suspicions of Communist infiltration.
Arthur Miller was inspired to write The Crucible after his friend and colleague, Elia Kazan, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee & named eight members of the Group Theater as known Communists, leading to the destruction of their careers. Miller confronted Kazan, who Miller later referred to as a “stool pigeon”, and shortly after traveled to Salem, Massachusetts to research the 1692 witch trials that The Crucible would be based on.
Miller came under HUAC’s attention shortly after the play opened in 1953. The first actress to play Elizabeth Proctor was immediately blacklisted and in 1954 was denied a request for a passport to attend the London premiere of "The Crucible". In 1956, Miller testified before HUAC & refused to give names. He was found to be in contempt of Congress & blacklisted by Hollywood. The ordeal affected him throughout the rest of his life.
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