ANDERSON — What if you were accused of a crime that you didn’t commit and your choices were to confess and go to jail or be hanged?

Those were the choices faced by people accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 17th century Massachusetts, which is the subject of Highland High School Theater Department’s production of Arthur Miller’s chilling drama, “The Crucible,” running this weekend in the HHS Auditorium, 2108 E. 200 North.

The play will be presented at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is also a Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. Tickets are $4 for students and senior citizens, and $6 for adults. Tickets are available at the door.

The main roles are performed by senior Will Johnson as Deputy Governor Danforth, who presided over the trials, junior Kristen Dulaney as Elizabeth Proctor, and sophomores Bryan Adams and Abby Helvering in the roles of John Proctor and the evil Abigail Williams, who initially started all the trouble.

“I’ve really been blessed with an incredibly talented cast with this particular show. Also, because some students had to drop out of the play, Kody Hope, Layke Jones, Brandon Smith, Dennis Smith, and Dakota Hensley all had to take over larger roles with less than three weeks to curtain, and really came through in a pinch,” said HHS theater director Greg Simpson.

In 1692, 19 people were hanged primarily on the testimony of a group of school girls in one of the darkest chapters in American history.

“One may find it hard to believe with the court system we have in place today that this could’ve happened, but, keep in mind, this was before the Constitution was written and the basis of our current system of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was put in place,” he said.

“Arthur Miller wrote the play as an allegory to events of the 1950s when the House Un-American Committee, led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, was accusing people of being communists during the famous Red Scare.

“People that were identified as having ties to communist organizations were forced to turn in friends, family, acquaintances, etc. or face “blacklisting” by the Committee,” Simpson said. “The fact that history virtually repeated itself was what makes this such a compelling play to perform.”

— For The Herald Bulletin