1. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

2. What is a Crucible?
A crucible is a cup-shaped laboratory equipment used to contain chemical compounds at extremely high temperatures.

3. The Crucible
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play based on the actual events that, in 1692, led to the Salem Witch Trials:
SWT were a series of hearings before local judges to prosecute over 150 people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693.

4. The Crucible
The play was written in the early 1950s by Arthur Miller during the time of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted people accused of being communists.
Arthur Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in The play was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953.

5. Arthur Miller
The inspiration for Miller’s play, The Crucible (1953), came from his experience with McCarthyism.

6. Arthur Miller
In 1956 Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe.

7. McCarthyism:
McCarthyism is a term denoting the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s.
During this time many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies.

8. Conventions of Drama Stage Directions:
The italicized instructions in a play are written by the playwright, or author, and are called stage directions.
Stage directions describe the setting of the play and suggest the use of props, lighting, scenery, sound effects, and costumes. Stage directions also describe the entrances and the exits of characters, and how the characters look, speak, and react to events or to others.

9. Conventions of Drama
Dialogue, or conversation between characters, is the lifeblood of drama. Virtually everything of consequence—from the plot details to the character revelations—flows from dialogue. Other speech devices used by playwrights, in addition to dialogue, include:
the monologue: a long speech spoken by a single character to himself or herself, or to the audience
the soliloquy: a monologue in which a character speaks his or her private thoughts aloud and appears to be unaware of the audience
the aside: a short speech or comment that is delivered by a character to the audience, but that is beyond the hearing of other characters who are present