Play Summary

 The Crucible: Summary and Author Notes from Buffalo & Erie County Public Library

Plot Summary from Internet Movie Database

Playwright Arthur Miller, 1966

Arthur Miller's Why I Wrote "The Crucible" (this is a long document so they will read a half)

Biography and Other Resources

Arthur Miller Biography from the National Endowment for the Arts

Read Arthur Miller's Why I Wrote The Crucible (The New Yorker, April 21, 1966

Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692) from Famous American Trials, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

 Multimedia Resources

SparkNotes summary of The Crucible

See a 2013 performance of the play from WilliamsTheatre at Williams College posted on YouTube

The Crucible Audiobook on YouTube has an audio version of the entire play.

Trailer from the 1996 film The Crucible starring Daniel Day Lewis, Winona Ryder and Joan Allen

• Captain Picard's Speech from the Star Trek Next Generation Episode, The Drumhead

Learning Plans

Which of You is a Witch? The Salem Witchcraft Trials and the Crucible from National Teacher Training Institute, Channel 13, New York City

Kazan, Miller and the McCarthy Era from American Masters, WGBY, Channel 57, Springfield, Massachusetts

Dramatizing History in Arthur Miller's The Crucible from the National Endowment for the Humanities

 Historical Connections:  McCarthyism

McCarthy-Army Hearings, 1954

 Primary Sources

President Harry S. Truman Responds to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s Accusations of Disloyalty

“Enemies from Within”: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s Accusations of Disloyalty. 

Margaret Chase Smith Declaration of Conscience Speech

 Historical Connections:  Salem Witch Trials

Link to Dramatic Event page on the Salem Witch Trials including a timeline, primary source materials and other resources.

Salem Witch Trials: Facts & History from the blog History of Massachusetts