Act I: Scene 1, The Crucible Summary

The Crucible is an award-winning allegorical play by American playwright Arthur Miller, and was first produced on Broadway in January, 1953. The tragic drama relates the story of the Salem witch trials which took place between 1692 and 1693 in Salem, Massachusetts, metaphorically reflecting the spread of McCarthyism during the 1950s in America.

Act I: Scene 1. Act I opens in the bedroom of Reverend Samuel Parris's home in Salem, Massachusetts. It is the spring of 1692. The curtain rises to reveal Reverend Parris kneeling beside a bed in which his daughter Betty, age 10, sleeps. Tituba, Reverend Parris's Negro slave, enters, asking about Betty's condition and Reverend Parris chases her from the room in a fury before breaking down into sobs.

Abigail Williams, age seventeen, enters and relates the news that the rumors of witchcraft have exploded in the town...