Source: Wikipedia. Commentary (plays not included). Pages: 25. Chapters: After the Fall (play), All My Sons, A Memory of Two Mondays, A View from the Bridge, Broken Glass (play), Death of a Salesman, Everybody Wins, Finishing the Picture, Honors at Dawn, Incident At Vichy, Mr. Peters' Connections, No Villain, Resurrection Blues, That They May Win, They Too Arise, The American Clock, The Archbishop's Ceiling, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The Crucible, The Golden Years (play), The Last Yankee, The Man Who Had All the Luck, The Price (play), The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. Excerpt: The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the U.S. government blacklisted accused communists. Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of "contempt of Congress" for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. It was first performed at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway on January 22, 1953. Miller felt that this production was too stylized and cold and the reviews for it were largely hostile (although The New York Times noted "a powerful play driving performance"). Nonetheless, the production won the 1953 "Best Play" Tony Award. A year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. It is a central work in the canon of American drama. Rev. Parris is praying over his daughter, Betty Parris, who lies as if unconscious in her bed. Conversations between Rev. Parris, his niece Abigail Williams and several other girls reveal that the girls, including Abigail and Betty, were engaged in heretical activities in a nearby forest, apparently led by Tituba, Parris's slave from Barbados. Parris had discovered them, whereupon Betty fainted and has not yet recovered. The townspeople do not know exactly what the girls were up to, but there are rumors of witchcraft. John Proctor enters the room in which Betty lies in bed, and Abigail, otherwise alone, tries to seduce him. It does not work, but it is revealed that Abigail and Proctor engaged in a previous affair and that Abigail still has feelings for him. Reverend John Hale is summoned from Beverly to look upon Betty and research the incident. He is a self-proclaimed expert in occult phenomena and is eager to use his acquired learning. He questions Abigail, who accuses Tituba of being a witch. Tituba, afraid of be