Amari Lewis, Jo Pellow, Lilly Gerend, and Avery Moss in John Proctor Is the Villain (Don Ipock)
Following its Broadway run last year, Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain has now expanded to regional companies across the country and is set to be the most produced play of the 2026/2027 season. It’s not hard to see why this play is so popular, as it’s a two-hour whirlwind of pop music-infused teen joy, thoughtful discussion of cultural revisionism, complex young characters, and dynamic performances.
John Proctor Is the Villain centers on a group of girls at a high school in a literal one-stoplight Georgia town. The girls are petitioning to start an extracurricular Feminism Club, both as a boost to their college applications as well as a desire to explore Big Ideas, like the impact of the #MeToo movement and how Taylor Swift fits into an idea of intersectional feminism.
Set in 2018, the #MeToo movement is at its apex as this story unfolds. “Even my grandpa knows about Harvey Weinstein, and my grandpa doesn’t know anything about anything past like 1980,” one girl tells the group.
The spotlight being shone on destructive behaviors long dismissed as cultural norms is undoubtedly a driving force behind the girls’ desire to form the club, and it’s also used as an excuse to shut the club down. The school’s guidance counselor, Miss Gallagher (Elaine Elizabeth), tries to convince the students it’s “not the right time” to form this group, as if the timing weren’t the point. It’s not until the students’ English teacher, Mr. Carter (Shane Kenyon) offers to serve as the club’s faculty adviser and tie it into his class’ curriculum that Miss Gallagher gives in.
Belflower’s script paints a picture of young feminism that is lovingly (and accurately) imperfect. The girls are too distracted by hero worship and varying degrees of crushes on Mr. Carter to take issue with the fact that it required a man’s intervention to get their feminism club approved. Their exploration is messy and myopic, but that doesn’t discredit their desire to understand their place in the world.
The design team behind KCRep’s John Proctor Is a Villain has done phenomenal work. The whole of the play takes place in Mr. Carter’s classroom, but Eleanor Kahn’s set (aided by Mario Raymond’s lights) doesn’t feel static. The same goes for Paul Kim’s costumes, which are realistic but still dynamic. One character, especially, undergoes subtle changes over the course of the play, and her relatively minor physical changes convey an emotionally weighty transformation.
Director Laura Alcalá Baker has put together a phenomenal cast. These girls are navigating a complex web of ever-shifting interpersonal dynamics, and the cast portrays them with believable ease. The dynamics turn chaotic when one of the girls, Shelby (Mizha Lee Overn), returns from a mysterious absence. She’s been gone following some sort of possible breakdown that culminated in her hooking up with her best friend Raelynn’s (Avery Moss) boyfriend, Lee (Sam Moore). (The actor Sheridan deserves a special shoutout as the other boy in Carter’s class, Mason. When Mason is sent to Feminism Club for mandatory extra credit, it bodes poorly for the group’s dynamics. But Sheridan plays the character with such charming openness, he quickly ends up being an audience favorite.)
It’s Shelby who introduces the idea put forth in the play’s title. Over the course of the play, Mr. Carter’s Honors English class is reading The Crucible, and the teacher leads them through all too timely discussions of witch hunts and modern analogies, both to the shadow of McCarthyism Arthur Miller was writing under, as well as the complexities of the #MeToo landscape.
Mr. Carter also tries to instill in his students the idea that John Proctor is one of literature’s greatest protagonists, and Shelby takes issue with that. Miller might have viewed Proctor as a bastion of integrity, but is a teenage girl in 2018 beholden to view things through Miller’s moral lens? Does she have to view a man who started a sexual relationship with his teenage employee, who berated his wife over his own infidelity, and who left his wife to care for their young child alone, as a hero?
The play’s title may be a declarative statement, but the other girls have very different reactions to the idea that Proctor is a villain. Nell (Amari Lewis), who is Black and newly transplanted from Atlanta, takes quickly to Shelby’s argument. Highstrung Beth (Jo Pellow) is the leader of the Feminist Club, but her devotion to Mr. Carter makes her hesitant to renounce his opinions.
As happens with people of all ages, but perhaps especially for those who are just starting to form strong opinions about the world around them, when our principles and our personal relationships end up at odds with one another, things can get complicated. Belflower’s script does an incredible job of approaching those complexities with a loving hand, and making sure to raise more questions than direct answers.
“John Proctor Is the Villain” runs at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Copaken Stage, 1 H&R Block Way) through October 25. For more information, visit kcrep.org.
