Drama Students Deliver Masterful 'Crucible'

A masterful cast and superb direction and staging elevate Arthur Miller's allegory of McCarthyism, 1953's award-winning "The Crucible" to pure perfection, scoring a huge dramatic win for the Mira Costa High School drama and tech theater department.

The dramatized, partly fictionalized tale of the Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693 reveals how exaggeration, lies, hysteria and fear can grip a community, and how reason and logic can be misconstrued to fit an outcome.

On stage Thursday through Saturday in the campus auditorium, this version is not to be missed. In fact, the Mira Costa cast is so exceptional they wear the play like a glove, inhabiting their roles in a seamless manner that makes the work enjoyable, believable and riveting. 

Standout cast members include Julia McDermott as Abigail Williams, Emily Everhard as Mary Warren, Matt Sena as John Proctor, Paxton Wright as Rev. John Hale and Brad Halvorsen as Deputy-Governor Danforth.

Additional fine work comes from Madeleine Higgins as Betty Parris, Ryan Fiene as Rev. Samuel Parris, Zachary Dushenko as Giles Corey and Gabby Wolf as Elizabeth Proctor.

With a work such as this, in which the language harkens back to another time, the tendency to over enunciate or be stiff and stilted is an easy one to succumb to. This cast never does.

And their timing and ability to create dramatic tension keeps the production from becoming tiresome in any way.

Anyone who has been to a Mira Costa production knows the professionalism that goes into every aspect, from set design and construction to hair and make-up to costumes to lighting to sound. No one element of a successful presentation is overlooked, thanks to the hands of numerous students and faculty members/directors Carol J. Mathews and Cary Jordahl.

A brief YouTube video of highlights is here.

"The Crucible" is on stage Thursday at 6:30 p.m., Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15  per adult and $12 for students and seniors, and are on sale at

• Dietz Brothers, 240 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
• Patterson Cleaners, 1904 N. Sepulveda Blvd
• Tiffany Cleaners, 1133 Artesia Blvd.