NEW YORK (AP) — Kimberly Belflower knew “John Proctor is the Villain” needed its final cathartic scene to work — and, for that, it needed Lorde’s “Green Light.”
“I literally told my agent, ‘I would rather the play just not get done if it can’t use that song,’” the playwright laughed. She wrote Lorde a letter, explaining what the song meant, and got her green light.
Starring Sadie Sink, the staggering play about high schoolers studying “The Crucible” as the #MeToo movement arrives in their small Georgia town, earned seven Tony nominations, including best new play — the most of any this season. It’s among a group of Broadway shows that have centered the stories of young people and attracted audiences to match.
Sam Gold’s Brooklyn-rave take on “Romeo + Juliet,” nominated for best revival of a play and led by Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler with music from Jack Antonoff, drew the youngest ticket-buying audience recorded on Broadway, producers reported, with 14% of ticket purchasers aged 18-24, compared to the industry average of 3%.
The shows share some DNA: pop music (specifically the stylings of Antonoff, who also produced “Green Light”), Hollywood stars with established fanbases and stories that reflect the complexity of young adulthood.
“It was very clear that young people found our show because it was doing what theater’s supposed to do,” Gold said. “Be a mirror.”
Embracing the poetry of teenage language
The themes “John Proctor” investigates aren’t danced around (until they literally are). The girls are quick to discuss #MeToo’s impact, intersectional feminism and sexual autonomy. Their conversations, true to teenage girlhood, are laced with comedy and pop culture references — Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, “Twilight,” and, of course, Lorde.
Fina Strazza, 19, portrays Beth, a leader who is whip-smart and well-intentioned — but whose friendships and belief system are shaken by the play’s revelations.
“You have so much empathy and are so invested in her, but she still has these mishaps and slip-ups that young people often have,” said Strazza, nominated for best featured actor in a play. Some audience members have given her letters detailing how Beth helped them forgive themselves for how they handled similar experiences.
The script is written in prose, with frequent line breaks and infrequent capital letters. Director Danya Taymor, nominated for best direction of a play a year after winning a Tony for another teenage canon classic, “The Outsiders, ” was drawn to that rhythm — and how Belflower’s depiction of adolescence captured its intensity, just as S.E. Hinton had.
“There’s something about the teenage years that is so raw,” Taymor said. “None of us can escape it.”
Classic themes, made modern
During his Tony-winning production of “An Enemy of the People,” Gold found himself having conversations with young actors and theatergoers about climate change, politics and how “theater was something that people their age and younger really need in a different way, as the world is becoming so addicted to technology,” he said.
That conjured “Romeo and Juliet.” The original text “has it all in terms of what it means to inherit the future that people older than you have created,” Gold said.
Building the world of this show, with an ensemble under 30, was not unlike building “An Enemy of the People,” set in 19th century Norway, Gold said: “I think the difference is that the world that I made for this show is something that a very hungry audience had not gotten to see.”
Fans, Gold correctly predicted, were ravenous. Demand ahead of the first preview prompted a preemptive extension. Word (and bootleg video) of Connor doing a pullup to kiss Zegler made the rounds. “Man of the House,” an Antonoff-produced ballad sung by Zegler mid-show, was released as a single. With the show premiering just before the U.S. presidential election, Voters of Tomorrow even registered new voters in the lobby.
Audiences proved willing to pay: Average ticket prices hovered around $150. Cheaper rush and lottery tickets drew lines hours before the box office opened. Every week but one sold out.
“The show was initially really well sold because we had a cast that appealed to a really specific audience,” said producer Greg Nobile of Seaview Productions. “We continued to see the houses sell out because these audiences came, and they were all over online talking about the ways in which they actually felt seen.”
Building a Gen Z theater experience with Gen Z
Thomas Laub, 28, and Alyah Chanelle Scott, 27, started Runyonland Productions for that very reason.
“We both felt a lot of frustration with the industry, and the ways that we were boxed out of it as students in Michigan who were able to come to New York sparingly,” Laub said. Runyonland was launched in 2018 with the premise that highlighting new, bold voices would bring change.
This spring, Scott, known for playing Whitney in HBO’s “Sex Lives of College Girls,” acted off-Broadway in Natalie Margolin’s “All Nighter.”
“I was standing onstage and looking out and seeing the college kids that I was playing,” Scott said. “I was like, ‘I respect you so much. I want to do you proud. I want to show you a story that represents you in a way that doesn’t belittle or demean you, but uplifts you.’”
Co-producing “John Proctor,” Scott said, gave Runyonland the opportunity to target that audience on a Broadway scale. Belflower developed the show with students as part of a The Farm College Collaboration Project. It’s been licensed over 100 times for high school and college productions. The Broadway production’s social and influencer marketing is run by 20-somethings, too.
Previews attracted fans with a $29 ticket lottery. While average prices jumped to over $100 last week (still below the Broadway-wide average), $40 rush, lottery and standing room tickets have sold out most nights, pushing capacity over 100%. The success is validating Runyonland’s mission, Laub said.
“Alyah doesn’t believe me that I cry every time at the end,” Laub said. Scott laughs. “I just want to assure you, on the record, that I do indeed cry every time.”
Harnessing a cultural catharsis
The final scene of “John Proctor” is a reclamation fueled by rage and “Green Light.” Capturing that electricity has been key to the show’s marketing.
“The pullup (in ‘Romeo + Juliet’) is so impactful because it’s so real. It’s like so exactly what a teenage boy would do,” Taymor said. “I think when you see the girls in ‘John Proctor’ screaming … it hits you in a visceral way.” That screaming made the Playbill cover.
“In my opinion, the look and feel of that campaign feels different from a traditional theatrical campaign, and it feels a lot closer to a film campaign,” Laub said. The show’s team indeed considered the zeitgeist-infiltrating work of their sister industries, specifically studios like Neon and A24.
In May, “John Proctor is the Villain” finished its second “spirit week” with a school spirit day. Earlier events included an ice cream social — actors served Van Leeuwen — a silent disco and a banned book giveaway. For those not in their own school’s colors, the merch stand offered T-shirts, including one printed with the Walt Whitman-channeling line said by Sink’s Shelby: “I contain frickin’ multitudes.”
Julia Lawrence, 26, designed the shirt after the show’s team saw her TikTok video reimagining their traditional merch into something more like a concert tee.
“It’s just so incredible to bring Gen Z into the theater that way, especially at a time when theater has never been more important,” Lawrence said. “In a world that’s overpowered by screens, live art can be such a powerful way to find understanding.”
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