← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
The Tony-Nominated Play 'John Proctor is the Villain'
00:28:51
The new play "John Proctor is the Villain" earned seven Tony nominations.
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- [00:00]
Alison Stewart
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- [00:28]
Kimberly Bellflower
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studio and soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I am grateful that you are here. On today's show, we'll talk about how ChatGPT is upending college with reporter James Walsh, who wrote about it for New York Magazine, Comedio. Mateo Lane will be here to talk about his new cookbook titled you, Pasta Sucks, as well as his new Hulu special. But this hour we're spending on Broadway with two shows, each with a powerful message. We'll speak with the director and one of the stars of the Tony nominated play Good Night and Good Luck and and we'll get started with a look at what happens when MeToo meets a high school English class. The new play, John Proctor is the Villain, has earned seven Tony nominations, including best play. But this new play is directly in conversation with an old one. In small town Georgia, a group of teenagers is reading Arthur Miller's the Crucible for the first time. Their beloved teacher, Mr. Smith, is walking them through the characters and themes. The year is 2018, and the MeToo movement takes on a new meaning for these teenage girls. Among those girls is Raelyn, played by Amalia Yu. When we meet her, she's had a falling out with her best friend Shelby after Shelby messed around with her boyfriend. The thing is, Shelby hasn't been back in school in weeks and Raelyn isn't really sure what's going on until secrets begin to surface. The New York Times says that John Proctor is the villain is, quote, urgently necessary. It's running now at the Booth Theatre. I'm joined now by playwright Kimberly Bellflower. Hi, Kimberly.
- [02:14]
Donya Taymor
Hi, Alison.
- [02:15]
Kimberly Bellflower
And director Donya Taymor. Nice to see you again, Danya.
- [02:17]
Alison Stewart
So great to be here.
- [02:18]
Kimberly Bellflower
And actor Amalia Yu plays Raelynn. Hi, Amalia.
- [02:21]
Amalia Yu
Hi. Thanks for having us.
- [02:22]
Kimberly Bellflower
So, Kimberly, why the Crucible?
- [02:25]
Donya Taymor
Well, I read, I reread the crucible in 2017 in the wake of the MeToo movement after Woody Allen called me to a witch hunt in an and I went back and read it and was just really struck by how different it was than the play I remembered reading in high school. And just the power imbalances between John Proctor and Abigail mirrored a lot of things that were going on in the MeToo movement in that moment, and also the setting of Salem, of this Puritan American setting. I grew up in small town Southern Baptist, Georgia, and it felt like there was a parallel there as well. And just as Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible as an allegory for McCarthyism, I felt like, oh, I think there's an opportunity to kind of continue this allegory. Yeah.
- [03:09]
Kimberly Bellflower
What was your relationship with the Crucible, Danya?
- [03:13]
Alison Stewart
I'm a huge Arthur Miller fan in general. I think he's an incredible writer who's exploring morals. And I saw the latest production of the Crucible on Broadway three times. So in a way, I guess you could say I was a super fan. But I love the play. I love his characters. I love what he's wrestling with. And when I first read Kimberly's play, it made me so excited to revisit the thing that had hit me in my guts with a different lens.
- [03:43]
Kimberly Bellflower
How about for you? What was your first experience with the Crucible?
- [03:46]
Amalia Yu
I. I also got to see the production on Broadway. I grew up in the city, and I remember there was one summer where my mom and I just decided to see as many Broadway shows as we could. And I am a huge Saoirse Ronan fan, so I went in with that, and I didn't really know anything else about the Crucible. I think I was like 13 or 14, and I was just blown away by that production. It shook me to my core. And then I think we read it in drama in high school, and it was pretty scandalous to read in high school. You know, there's like, there's an affair. There's talk of religion and justice, and we. We ate it up. We loved it. I loved it. Yeah.
- [04:27]
Kimberly Bellflower
Kimberly, when did you come to the conclusion that John Proctor is the villain? My friend and I, we were like, of course he's the vil.
- [04:35]
Donya Taymor
It was right after I reread it in 2017, and I was talking to. My family has a farm, and I was staying on their farm, and I was talking to my parents about it, and I heard myself say, and it's so funny because it really feels like John Proctor is the villain. And I heard myself say that, and I was like, ahahaha. But then we talked a lot in rehearsal where I'm like, I don't know if I believe. I don't know if I believe that fully. I think it's an intentional provocation. And also, I don't know if I believe. I don't I don't think there is a clear villain and not villain. You know, like, multiple things can be true at the same time. And so John Proctor certainly has villainous aspects of his character and treats the women in the play abhorrently and also takes very necessary moral stands about truth. And so it's interesting to wrestle with that and to look at, like, who is he the villain to, and why and in what moments, and how does that ripple out through the rest of the play?
- [05:33]
Kimberly Bellflower
Now, this play came through the College Collaboration Project. Would you explain that?
- [05:37]
Donya Taymor
Yeah, yeah. The Farm Theater, which is a development theater here in New York, has this program called the College Collaboration Project, where they go in with different colleges and universities across the country to co commission an early career playwright to develop a play with their theater students. And so from like, I had this idea, but I hadn't written a word of it. And then I got to interview, work with, and then attend the productions of the early drafts of this play at three different colleges in Kentucky, South Carolina and Florida. So it was an invaluable resource as I was developing the play in its early stages.
- [06:12]
Kimberly Bellflower
Danya, the show is set in 2018, so we're in the midst of the MeToo movement. What do you remember about that time seven years ago? Think about it, and the conversations you had that helped you figure out how you were going to direct this play.
- [06:28]
Alison Stewart
The thing I remember most about that time is when the first article came out in the New York Times about Harvey Weinstein. And I remember being glued to it, sitting on my couch at home, and my then boyfriend trying to say something to me about dinner. And I was like, I just a minute, just a minute. And I just had to read this thing and get through it. And I just sat there and I think what happened to many of US after the MeToo movement started to come out and all these stories came out, as we started to rethink our own experiences, and not just our own experiences, how we thought about our experiences and our lives and intimacy and desire and all these different kinds of experiences we had had. And it became actually more confusing, more murky, because we were able to look back at our experiences and say, oh, wow, maybe this was more complicated, complex than I thought. And in some cases, maybe this was actually more clear than I thought. And when we started to look at the play, I think remembering that flood of emotion, the confusion, the sort of intensity of that moment felt so important to bring into the space and remind us all. And the other thing I think came up so much in the wake of Me too was how personal it all felt for everyone in society in different ways. And I think that's something that Kim really brought out in the play. So, well, what happens when it's not, you know, somebody you read about in the paper? What happens when it's somebody in your community who you love and respect, who has good qualities? What do you do then? And I find that to be incredibly important to wrestle with.
- [08:01]
Kimberly Bellflower
Amalia, when we meet your character in the play, Raelyn, what's going on with her?
- [08:07]
Amalia Yu
She has been through it. She's really lost her entire support system. She has broken up with her boyfriend of seven years after he cheated on her with her best friend. And she, you know, she has some of her other friends still by her side, but really her closest anchors are lost. And she's coming to terms with that and also coming to terms with the idea that she can choose who she wants to be and she has no idea who that is. So she's in a place of self discovery and confusion and hurt and loss, but there's like, still a little twinkle of, like, hope and excitement of like, getting to discover who that person might be and who that person, she. Who it is she wants to be.
- [09:07]
Kimberly Bellflower
My guests are Tony nominated playwright Kimberly Bellflower, Tony nominated director Donya Taymor, and actor Amelia Yu. We're discussing their new play, John Proctor is the Villain, which is up for seven Tony Awards. It's running now at the Booth Theater. So this play has a lot of different reveals. Kimberly in it, as we get to know the characters, as we get to know what's been going on with them, how did you work on pacing those reveals?
- [09:31]
Donya Taymor
Hmm, that's a good question. It really evolved over time. I mean, I've been. I started writing this play in 2018 and I think, like, I. The kind of core story with Raelyn and Shelby's friendship with Shelby, Shelby's kind of central reveal, not to spoil anything that was always in the play. And then stuff with Ivy's dad and other characters that were kind of these like micro reveals leading up to the major reveals that came around later when I was like, oh, how do I. How do I kind of. I know that I have this big piece of information coming that maybe some people are going to see coming, but how do I make it as surprising as possible for as many people as possible? And so I think that. And then that helped me then deepen the characters that were surrounding this core relationship of Shelby and Raelyn and kind of figure out like, okay, like what play can I make people think they're watching? What questions can I make the audience ask ahead of this thing that kind of changes everything? And then even if you do see it coming, how can I make it happen in a way that's surprising? And so it's. Sometimes it's not the information itself, but the way that the information is communicated in the moment. And so, yeah, I think, like, there have been versions where that big reveal comes earlier, comes later, and then trying to figure out, like, okay, how. And that comes from, like, from workshops, from readings, from different development stages, but kind of being like, where is the audience's patience at this point? Like, where are they getting ahead of the play? Where is the play getting ahead of them? And how do I kind of calibrate accordingly?
- [11:10]
Kimberly Bellflower
Daniel, this is something I'm so glad I get to talk to you about, because I saw the play Saturday night, and I was really struck by the moments that each character is in the spotlight, and it kind of, like, the world around them shivers and their brain quivers, and everybody's got a different expression. Each character kind of has it. It's the lighting around them is out of sync. They seem to have something on their mind. We're not sure exactly what they have on their mind. Tell us about this decision.
- [11:40]
Alison Stewart
So Kimberly's play is amazing, and it has 15 transitions. And Kimberly has so much trust for directors because she doesn't tell you how to do them. But what the play is doing is it's dropping you deep inside these teenage girls, and it's letting you experience the world through their perspective. And so these moments that we call girl focus, is that what they're called? Oh, we call them that, yeah. That's our. That's their unofficial title. Are these moments where we make external what one of these characters is feeling internally, and we allow the audience in to what she might be feeling, even though she's not exposing that to the world around her. And my hope is that then when you look at a kid or you look at a teenage girl, you look at any human being and they're presenting one way, you might be curious to think, oh, what's actually going on underneath there? Are they okay? Maybe it's not what it appears. And these moments of interiority with each of the characters are so intimate. They require so much of the incredible actors because they're looking at the audience. They're super exposed. And in many, many moments, it's their most vulnerable. So in the transitional language, I wanted to deepen the work that Kimberly was doing through my own directorial lens with the characters, with the design team, and make sure that these transitions were still doing storytelling without adding any information, just letting us go deeper into the souls of the characters.
- [13:00]
Kimberly Bellflower
Amalia, can you tell us a little bit about your girl focus moment, conversations you had with Danya about how to portray that moment where there's no dialogue, it's just your face?
- [13:10]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
- [13:13]
Amalia Yu
It'S. I love micro focus. I. It's. I feel lucky because it's the first time. Mine is the first time that it happens. And at that point in the play, we're still kind of like teaching people how to watch the play. And it's just like, it just conversations that we had about it just reminded me of that feeling, especially in high school, where you're hurting so bad. There's so much going on in your interior world, but you can't show it. And you have to put on a brave face. You have to get through, like, the seven periods that you still have left in your day. It's scary because, you know, we're looking out into the audience and seeing their faces. So that's kind of frightening sometimes, but it's. It changes every night. It's. It's. It's really powerful. It feels powerful in the moment, doing it. Even though Rhea feels completely powerless.
- [14:29]
Kimberly Bellflower
One of the main characters, Sadie Sink, she plays Shelby. She doesn't really show up for a good 30 minutes into the play. How did you want to build suspension and tension for the arrival of Shelby?
- [14:43]
Donya Taymor
Yeah, so we find out pretty early on in the second scene of the play that this thing with Shelby and Raelyn and Raelyn's boyfriend Lee, like, this whole situation has gone down. And then for those first 30 minutes of the play, we hear a lot of the other characters talking about Shelby and kind of see, like, so the audience finds out these things, like, oh, she slept with her best friend's boyfriend. Oh, her friends are talking about, like, she's always been, like, a little crazy, like, quote, unquote. And so it's really fun to kind of like, tell the audience about someone before they meet the someone. And then they have to wrestle with, like, is this true? Is this not true? And then to kind of know that I'm planting these preconceived notions of someone that then later is hopefully going to surprise them. But then also, like, Sadie just has something such a, like, totally transparent face, and you see, like, everything she's feeling, but then you feel, like, her, like, the armor being put back on. And so, yeah, so it's really fun to play with those, like, those expectations of, like. And I think that's, that's happened to all of us in our lives, especially with women. You know, we like, hear like, oh, she's a lot. She's a little, oh, she's a little much sometimes, or all these things. And then, you know, you meet the person and maybe you take those things that you've heard into your experience with them. Maybe you have your own experience with them and have to wrestle with, like, why did that person say that? Yeah, so it's just a really fun position to put the audience in to kind of to wrestle.
- [16:17]
Kimberly Bellflower
We're talking about John Proctor is the Villain. It's at the Booth Theater now. My guests are Kimberly Bellflower, Donya Taymor, and Amelia Yu. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We are talking about John Proctor is the Villain. It's running now at the Booth Theater. It is nominated for seven Tony Awards. Joining us are Kimberly Bellflower, the playwright, director Donya Taymor, and actor Amelia. Okay, so we only see the adults in the show in their professional settings. We see Mr. Smith and the guidance counselor, Ms. Gallagher. Daniel, what conversations did you have with the actors about how they would present themselves at work with the adult actors?
- [17:12]
Alison Stewart
Oh, well, Mr. Smith is the best teacher. He's the teacher we all wish we had. Some of us did have him. I think that he brings out the best in his students. He's really creative with what assignments that he, he gives. And I think it felt really important for Gabriel Ebert, who plays him, to bring that sense of goodness to the character. And then Molly Griggs, who plays Bailey Gallagher. She's kind of in between Mr. Smith and the young girls who are in School. She's 24. She's trying to prove herself, and she's kind of stuck between being a teenager and being an adult. And she kind of bridges that gap. We see how she is kind of of a different micro generation, even though she's so close to the girls. And we're able to see how these differences in how we take up space as women, what we feel we're allowed to say, what we've been taught even in the span of eight years can shift so much. So with those two characters, I just encourage them to bring their sense of goodness to the characters and then let the play take care of the rest.
- [18:18]
Kimberly Bellflower
Amaya the characters are so into Mr. Smith, some more than Others, but they're really into him as a teacher initially. What do they love about him so much?
- [18:29]
Amalia Yu
He listens to them, and he takes them seriously, and that is, like, the best thing that someone could offer these teenage girls. You know, there's a line where we say he actually. He treats us like adults. Like, he. He doesn't treat us like. Like preschoolers, like all the other teachers do. And his assignments are fun, and he allows everyone to be their truest self in the classroom. He creates a safe space where even if you don't always have the best thing to say, you don't always know the best thing to say, you're still invited to say things and speak up in class. And he just. He sees every single one of the students and makes them feel like a light.
- [19:23]
Kimberly Bellflower
Kimberly, I want to talk. There are also boys in this play. They're so genius. The boys are so great in this play. What did you want to explore about what it means to be a teen boy and also teen boys just as they're turning into young men.
- [19:39]
Donya Taymor
Yeah. Thank you for asking that. I love the boys at our play. And there are two teenage boys, Lee and Mason. And I think that we see in them kind of they're both at this crossroads, especially. Lee has been given a very narrow definition of what it is to be a man in the world. And I think growing up in the rural South, I saw that happen to a lot of boys. And, you know, like, men, like, don't show their emotions and don't talk about their feelings, and, you know, like, keep it down and, like, strength means one thing and one thing only. And in Lee, we see this person who has suppressed all of these, like, really complicated feelings because he doesn't know how to talk about them. He hasn't been given the chance or the instruction of how to talk about them. And we see those feelings kind of curdle and start to become anger and these things, and he's, like, acting out instead of dealing with the feelings. And then we see Mason, who is, like, kind of joins this feminist club, like, kind of accidentally. And then we see him, like. And he says the wrong thing. A lot of the time. We see that maybe he has also been given narrow definitions of things. But then we see him being willing to learn and willing to change in a way that Lee is not. And so I think we see these two boys kind of, like, start to. It is, like, just the first steps down different paths, you know, like. But, yeah, we talked about that a lot of, like, Mason never stops trying Even when he says the wrong thing, even when he messes up, he never stops trying. Like, his, like, last action of the play is, like, supporting these girls. So, yeah, I think, I hope that the boys in the play make people think about, like, the ways that we talk to young men about their feelings and about what it means to be a man and about the possibilities of being a person in the world. Yeah, I love them.
- [21:44]
Kimberly Bellflower
Danya, what do you remember about this period in your life that you definitely wanted to bring to this show that you wanted to share with the actors who are pretty young?
- [21:55]
Alison Stewart
I think that when we're teenagers, we're experiencing so many firsts, and they're so visceral and they're so huge. And I wanted to take all of those things so seriously. I remember how serious every single thing felt as a teenager. And so when we were talking about the world of the play and these experiences that these young characters are going through, I wanted to make sure that they could all take up the stuff space that they deserved, because we all become the people we are. Many of us become those people when we're teenagers by these experiences that we have, these things that imprint us in these moments. And so we did a lot of work in the rehearsal room to build an ensemble, but also to make space for these raw, courageous performances. I remember sitting with Amalia and Sadie and saying to them, so we do have to go there every night, eight times a week. So if going there is non negotiable, how can I support you so that you can do that? And it is such a privilege to be the leader of this very young company and to try to remember what it was like to be in their shoes and how serious, but also sometimes hilarious everything was. And just to give it that space and life and size.
- [23:10]
Kimberly Bellflower
All right, I'm going to read from the playbill for Amalia. It says Amal Yu is thrilled to be making her Broadway debut. Born and Raised in New York City, she played Luna in Grief Camp at the Atlantic Theater. On screen, credits include no Hard Feelings, Netflix's Grand Army. She also played Joey in an Off Broadway production of slut the play. NPR's green space downstairs. Might I represent. She's a Proud Alumna of LaGuardia High School. LaGuardia is not your average high school, but in many ways it is. I have friends, kids who go to LaGuardia, they go to high school. What do you remember from your high school experience that you use every night?
- [23:49]
Amalia Yu
It's crazy that 2018 was when I was a junior. And now I'm playing a junior in 2018 on Broadway. I think the friendships that I had in high school that I am lucky enough to still have today, I think about that. I think about those friendships every single night. And how even when you feel so far away from your friends, there's still a connective tissue and there's still so much love because you have all of this shared life together and it's such a precious time. And to get to spend that with other people who know you better than you know yourself is really a gift. And yeah, I think about that. I think about those friendships every single night.
- [24:50]
Kimberly Bellflower
I want to give. I don't want to give too much away. But the song Green Light by Lorde is very important in the show. It features an important dance sequence near the end of the play. Let's listen to a little bit about it because we want to hear the song and we can talk about it on the other side.
- [25:05]
Amalia Yu
I know about what you did and I want to scream the truth. She thinks you love the beat. You're such a damn liar. Oh, those great whites, they have big teeth oh, they bite you Thought you said that you would always be in love but you're not in love no more did it frighten you how we.
- [25:34]
Donya Taymor
Kiss when we dance?
- [25:34]
Amalia Yu
On the light of floor on the light of floor But I hear sounds in my mind Brand new sounds in.
- [25:49]
Kimberly Bellflower
My mind so, Danya, what went into the choreography? Or is that just like a free for all at the moment?
- [25:56]
Alison Stewart
Oh, no, no, no. Okay, well, first it's starts with Kimberly's incredible stage directions. So there's still a lot of freedom in how you tell the story of the dance. But Kimberly's written this incredible story through the dance of what's happening, who does what, when, what needs to happen, how long it should take when it turns into something else. And then working with Tillie Evans Krieger, the choreographer, who's our movement director, we really created a this, like, organic dance that would feel like something that two girls genuinely made in their bedrooms together. And we that with Kimberly's incredible stage direction. So it feels feral. It does.
- [26:36]
Kimberly Bellflower
It really does.
- [26:37]
Donya Taymor
Yeah.
- [26:37]
Alison Stewart
And I was thinking, like, what is making people so arrested by this? Why is this having such a particular effect on the audience? And something I realized through the watching of it is I think it's one of the only times I've seen young women be wild and feral in a way that is not sexualized. And I like. I think that makes it so special and so unique and People are like, whoa, the power of these young women and the fact that it isn't hypersexual is so incredible. So, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that in the power of this final moment.
- [27:10]
Kimberly Bellflower
What are you thinking about during that scene?
- [27:14]
Amalia Yu
Ooh. I think about the people who are sitting in the audience who are seeing this for the first time, and how much it would mean to me if I was sitting in that audience watching it. And sometimes I'm thinking about how my body hurts and how I'm tired and how we have to get through it. And then also just like, I'm thinking about how lucky I am that I get to do it with Sadie, that we're not, you know, it's not just one of us having to do it alone. Like, we really are there for each other every single night.
- [27:54]
Kimberly Bellflower
And you started to dance as soon as the song came on. Kimberly, what does that song do for you?
- [28:00]
Donya Taymor
It does everything to me. Danya said at one point, she was like, you've probably heard this song more than anyone alive besides Lorde. And I think that's probably true. And at every single time, it gets into my bone. It like, I think that the feeling of the song. And I like. I mean, I can talk about, like, the metaphorical resonance of the song and a million things about the song all day long, but I think that, like, it feels to me like what it is to move through something painful and get out on the other side and be like, oh, that sucked. And also, I'm gonna use it. And so it just like, yeah, it, like, just get. It gets into your body. Like, even if you don't have a relationship with the song, I think it gets into your body and it works. It works every time. It's like a spell.
- [28:50]
Kimberly Bellflower
The name of the play is John Proctor is the villain. I've been speaking with playwright Kimberly Bellflower, director Donya Taymor, and actor Amelia Yu. It is up for seven Tony Awards, and it's running now at the Booth Theater. Thank you so much for coming to wnyc, to the studio.
- [29:06]
Alison Stewart
Thank you.
- [29:06]
Donya Taymor
Thank you so much for having us.
- [29:11]
Kimberly Bellflower
Make your Memorial Day weekend joyfully chill with a cool, creamy sensation of my mochi ice cream.
- [29:17]
Donya Taymor
My mochi is perfectly portioned scoops of.
- [29:20]
Kimberly Bellflower
Premium ice cream wrapped in sweet, soft dough.
- [29:22]
Donya Taymor
It comes in all your favorite flavors, like strawberry, mango cookies and cream and amazing new flavors like lemon cheesecake.
- [29:29]
Kimberly Bellflower
My mochi ice cream is gluten free.
- [29:31]
Donya Taymor
And only around 70 calories per piece.
- [29:34]
Kimberly Bellflower
Look for the purple box of mymochi at Walmart or visit mymochi.com to find.
- [29:38]
Donya Taymor
A store near you.
- [29:40]
Alison Stewart
NYC now delivers breaking news, top headlines, and in depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening. By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship wnyc.org to learn more.