A rural Georgia AP English class reading Arthur Miller's The Crucible becomes the unlikely setting for a reckoning over who gets remembered as a hero, in Kansas City Repertory Theatre's new production of John Proctor Is the Villain. The Tony-nominated play runs at Copaken Stage in downtown Kansas City through October 25, putting KC Rep among the first regional theaters nationally to stage the show after its Broadway run.
The play centers on a group of high schoolers navigating gender and power during the #MeToo movement, as five young women in the class begin questioning the stories and heroes they have been taught to believe in, according to American Conservatory Theater. Those students study Miller's 1953 classic in English class even as their own small town grapples with secrets that echo its themes. KC Rep itself describes the ensemble as five young women fueled by pop music, optimism and fury, finding their voices, per Kansas City Repertory Theatre.
Written by Kimberly Belflower, the play was commissioned by The Farm Theater in 2017 and later had its Broadway run in 2025, where it picked up seven Tony Award nominations including Best Play, according to Playbill. During that Broadway run, the production starred Stranger Things actor Sadie Sink, who earned her own Tony nomination for playing the social outcast Shelby Holcomb, the outlet reported.
A Local Cast Stepping Into Teenage Shoes
KC Rep is the professional theater in residence at UMKC, and most of its cast members for this production are young adult actors between the ages of 20 and 25, taking on the seven-member ensemble of teenagers, according to a report from Yahoo Entertainment. The production is recommended for audiences ages 13 and older and runs about 1 hour and 45 minutes without an intermission, per KC Rep. The theater also notes the show contains adult language, references to sexual harassment and grooming, and a brief mention of suicide.
As KCUR reported, the play was both written and set in the late 2010s, a period it revisits through the lens of its 2025 Broadway staging and its 2026 regional premiere here. Director Laura Alcalá Baker told KCUR that the play's context reflects when it was written, when it takes place and when it is being produced — three layers of time that inform how audiences read its themes. KC Studio's season preview identifies the director's name with a slightly different spelling, Lauren Alcalá Baker, a discrepancy the two outlets have not reconciled.
Connecting a 2018 Classroom to Today's Headlines
Alcalá Baker said the play draws a direct line between the #MeToo movement and the online manosphere, linking the show's small-town classroom drama to ongoing current events, according to the same KCUR interview. Yahoo Entertainment's report frames the material similarly, describing a story about teens navigating identity, friendships, relationships, sexuality and the role that adults play — for good and ill — in shaping them. That outlet also notes the play's relevance to society's continuing struggles to protect, respect and listen to women on questions of sexual assault and abuse.
Despite that heavy subject matter, Alcalá Baker said the play leans on comedic and unexpected dialogue to deliver its message, per KCUR. She added that making audiences laugh can disarm them and encourage them to actually listen.
Part of a National Surge
KC Rep's run is not an isolated bet: a survey by American Theatre magazine found that John Proctor Is the Villain will be the most-produced play in the country this season, with at least 20 productions scheduled nationwide, according to The New York Times. That survey reviewed 1,634 productions, excluding A Christmas Carol and Shakespeare's works, and found Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Purpose a distant second with 14 productions, while playwright August Wilson led individual writers with 23 productions across the season.
Beyond Kansas City, a co-production between American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theater and Center Theatre Group will bring the play to San Francisco's Tony Rembe Theater from November 12 through December 6, with an opening night set for November 18, Playbill reported in its cast announcement for the West Coast premiere. That production is slated to travel afterward to Seattle Repertory Theater and Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. On Broadway, the original production also won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play alongside its seven Tony nominations, per Playbill.
