Staging,+lighting,+sound,+music...etc.

=Staging=  The actors use props and backdrops which are created to look like the actual setting of the Salem village during that time period The settings include Betty’s room, Goody Proctor's living room and kitchen, the town jail, and the court room. The sets create a depressing atmosphere since all the areas settings are small and intense. Even the scenes outdoors, usually considered free and wild, are shown to be dark, scary, mysterious and dangerous in this play due to the grim and gloom times that the inhabitants of Salem were going through.



=Act I= //"A small upper bedroom in the home of// REVEREND SAMUEL PARRIS//, Salem, Massachussetts, in the spring of the year 1692. There is a narrow window at the left. Through its leaded panes the morning sunlight streams. A candle still burns near the bed, which is at the right. A chest, a chair, and a small table are the other furnishings. At the back a door opems on the landing of the stairway to the ground floor. The room gives off an air of clean spareness. The roof rafters are exposed, and the wood colors are raw and unmellowed."//

The play first begins in Reverend Parris' home. This is where the play opens and it establishes the framework of the puritan home. The hysteria of the time period is first seen in this household with the Reverend and Betty. Here is also where the audience realizes that the Reverend is more concerned about his position in the community than his 'witched' daughter.

= = =Act II=

The scene changes from the house of Reverend Parris to the Proctor’s home and eight days have elapsed since Abigail and Betty started accusing people of witchcraft.

//"The common room of// PROCTOR's //house, eight days later At the right is adoor opening on the fields outside. A fireplace is at the left, and behind it a stairwayleading upstairs. It is tge low dark, and rather long living room of the time. As rthe curtain rises the room is empty, From above Elizabeth is heard softly singing to the children."//

The initial impression of the Proctor household is that it is a calm and peaceful place in contrast to the scenes in the Parris household. This is what the Proctor's household shows to the Salem community, but there is still tension arising from within it, from Proctor’s affair with Abigail.

=Act III=

"//The vestry room of the Salem meeting house, now serving as the anteroom of the General Court. As the curtain rises, the room is empty, but for sunlight pouring through two high windows in the back wall. The room is solemn even forbidding. Heavy beams jut out, boards of random widths make up the walls."// The play is now set at the Salem meeting house.The place seems so solemn because the majority of the people brought there are convicted and usually do not get out of there unscathed. Sunlight pours into the meeting house as the last traces of hope for the people that enter the place.



=Act IV=

"//A cell in Salem jail, that fall. The place is in darkness but for the moonlight seeping through the bars. It appears empty//." Act IV begins in a Salem jail cell later in the fall. Within the jail were Nurse Rebecca and Giles Corey, whom were noble people that were going to be executed for the sake of the community. John Proctor in this act is left to decide whether he will accept the martyrdom of Rebecca and Corey or choose self-interest.