The Crucible(Background Information)

The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory to McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists. Miller himself was questioned by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s US House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and was convicted of "contempt of Congress" for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. The play was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953. Miller felt that this production was too stylized and cold and the reviews for it were largely hostile. Nonetheless, the production won the 1953 "Best Play" Tony Award. A year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. Today it is studied in high schools and universities because of its status as a revolutionary work of theatre and for its allegorical relationship to testimony given before the Committee on Un-American Activities during the 1950s. It is a central work in the canon of American drama.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/english3gk/home/literature/the-colonial-period/the-crucible/the-crucible-notes/background-information-on-the-crucible