The Department of Theatre acting instructor Jenny McKnight, will be making her debut at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee where she will be playing Elizabeth Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

McKnight's other Chicago stage credits include roles at the Goodman Theatre; Northlight Theatre; Steppenwolf Theatre; Remy Bumppo Theatre; Next Theatre; Victory Gardens, among others. A partial list of regional theatre work includes repeat appearances at Indiana Repertory Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Kansas City Repertory, and Purple Rose Theatre and TheatreSquared.

Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, The Crucible is an ageless tale of fear, greed and power written by one of the greatest American playwrights of all time. When teenage girls are discovered trying to conjure spirits, the 17th century town of Salem explodes with accusations of witchcraft. The vicious trials that follow expose a community paralyzed by terror, religious extremism and greed, and a marriage forever changed.

Miller composed The Crucible as a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials, with the witch trials standing in for the anti-Communist "witch-hunts" of the 1950s during the McCarthy era. As with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were encouraged to confess and identify other Communist sympathizers in order to escape punishment. Many of those accused of Communism suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. 

Arthur Miller's classic The Crucible will play in the Clarence Brown Theatre's Carousel Theatre from Sept. 28 to Oct. 16. A Pay What You Wish Preview performance will be held Wednesday, Sept. 28. The second preview will take place on Thursday, Sept. 29, and opening night will take place on Friday, Sept. 30. The Talk Back with the cast will take place Sunday, Sept. 9, following the matinee and the Open Captioned performance is Sunday, Sept. 16 at 2 p.m. A panel discussion about the impact of the play upon political discussions during its time and today will take place after the Sunday, Sept. 16, matinee. Sponsors are Pilot Flying J, Merchant & Gould and support from the city of Knoxville and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Media sponsors are WUOT, WUTK, The Daily Beacon, the Knoxville Mercury, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Press release by Robin Conklin, edited by Michael Riha