How Kimberly Belflower Got Lorde to Sign Off on Using 'Green Light' in John Proctor is the Villain

Kimberly Belflower does not hate The Crucible. Sure, she may have written a play called John Proctor is the Villain (currently running at Broadway’s Booth Theatre), but her feelings around the Arthur Miller classic are, well, complicated. “Why would I write a play and spend, like, seven years of my life in conversation with something I hate?�� she remarks rhetorically. “It’s more about how The Crucible is taught than it is about The Crucible ��ٲ��.��

For Belflower, as for generations of American high schoolers, The Crucible was always interpreted through the lens of John Proctor as a hero who is unfairly maligned by Abigail Williams. That was how Belflower was taught the play as a junior in high school. But back in 2017, as the #MeToo movement was taking flight, Belflower found herself on her parents�� farm in North Carolina, the summer after she finished graduate school. Spurred by Woody Allen calling #MeToo a witch hunt, Belflower began researching the real history behind the Salem Witch Trials, which led to her re-reading The Crucible. She saw it through new eyes, realized how disturbing it was that John, a middle-aged man, cheated on his wife with a teenage girl, and then threatened Abigail when she dared to speak out.

“I heard myself say out loud to my dad, ‘It’s crazy, because it really feels like John Proctor is the villain.’�� Here, her eyes light up and she smiles, adding: “I heard that phrase, and I was like, ‘Oh��.’�� She had the makings of a play.

John Proctor Is the Villain premiered at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 2022. It has since been produced at around 100 colleges around the country—meaning it is very popular with young people. One of those young people is Sadie Sink, who first read the play in 2022. After nearly a decade of her life on the special-effects-heavy show Stranger Things on Netflix, Sink was ready to do something different. Inspired by her Stranger Things co-star Gaten Matarazzo (who was on Broadway in 2023 in Sweeney Todd), Sink told her agent she wanted to do theatre.

“Doing eight shows a week, it’s not easy,�� Sink says, recalling her Broadway debut at 10 years old in the company of Annie. “Being able to perform live in front of people, that was something that I knew would be a challenge, and one that I was ready to take—especially at this point in my life, ending a big chapter of being on a huge franchise television show. I kind of wanted to go do something completely opposite.��

Coincidentally, Belflower’s agent and Sink’s agent work at the same talent agency: WME. John Proctor quickly landed in Sink’s inbox. The actor read it in one go; she couldn’t put it down. And it wasn’t because of The Crucible (Sink found that play boring when she read it as a teenager). Instead, she was drawn to Belflower’s touching portrayal of teenage girls.

While the play references The Crucible, it is actually a coming-of-age story about a group of teenage girls living in a small community in Georgia. Over the course of the play, driven by a #MeToo revelation that happens in their own school, the girls have a feminist awakening. And yes, they also realize that their English teacher was wrong and that “John Proctor is the villain.�� Faced with a plethora of roles to choose from, Sink chose Shelby, who is at the center of the #MeToo conversation in the play.

“[The play is] showcasing what girlhood is in a really authentic way,�� says Sink. “Navigating such a tricky time in girlhood, where it’s like, what feminism is and what that means—and especially during this time where the play is taking place, in the #MeToo movement, being a feminist, being a girl, it starts to take a different form…These questions that they’re facing and asking themselves, it’s scary.��

READ: How Gaten Matarazzo Inspired Sadie Sink to Go Back to Broadway

Sadie Sink and Kimberly Belflower photographed at the Times Square EDITION Heather Gershonowitz

It’s no wonder John Proctor is popular among young people; it portrays teenage girlhood without being condescending or trafficking in catty stereotypes. There are no queen bees, no mean girls. Instead, it’s about girls finding their voices, as they talk about everything from Taylor Swift to whether you can be a good feminist if you don't always believe women. As a theatre professor at Emory University, Belflower spends most of her days with undergraduates, and she innately sympathizes with the younger generation.

“They’re searching, and they’re so brave,�� says Belflower of the characters in the play. “All of them say things that are really smart. All of them say things that are really fucked up. All of them are trying…So it’s complicated, but teenagers are complicated. People are complicated.��

Belflower based the characters in John Proctor on her own girlhood—in fact, she relates the most to the character of Beth in the play, saying, "I was such a Beth in high school, I just wanted to be good all the time. I wanted to get A's all the time." And like her characters in the play, Belflower grew up in rural Georgia, in a place called White County in fact, where the Southern Baptist Church was a dominant voice. And she is well aware of the stereotypes that Northerners have about Southerners; that was why in college, Belflower worked hard to tamp down her thick Southern accent. But in John Proctor, Belflower wanted to give a more nuanced and modern portrayal of Southern life and Southern girlhood—one where the church, and reading Joan Didion, go hand-in-hand. The girls' conversations in John Proctor about #MeToo are just as complex as the ones happening in the wider culture: Who do we believe? What does justice look like?

And crucially, John Proctor asks a question that is rarely asked: How do we heal? That was why for the writer, the play isn't focused on the moment of assault—that would be a whole different play, which has been written before. Instead, the play intensely focuses on the young women, some of whom are affected, others who aren't—and how they create a sisterhood (you might even call it a coven). "That was really important to me, too," Belflower emphasizes. "These power structures, these patriarchal power structures, are really harmful to young women. But look how vibrant and smart and funny and kind these young women are. And look at how many ways they're learning to take care of each other when the power structures won't take care of them."

A crucial way the young women of John Proctor take care of each other: by pulling a page from the opening scene of The Crucible and dancing. Except this time, it's portrayed as an act of freedom rather than an illicit, evil ritual. In the final scene of John Proctor, Shelby and her friend Raelyn (Amalia Yoo) lead their class in a dance set to "Green Light" by Lorde. And yes, Belflower successfully got Lorde to sign off on the usage—by writing a heartfelt letter explaining why "Green Light" was so important to her, starting with when that song first came out and Belflower listened to it on repeat for two hours.

Sadie Sink and Amalia Yoo in *John Proctor is the Villain* Julieta Cervantes

"In 'Green Light,' when the key changes from minor to major in the pre-chorus, and she says, 'I hear sounds in my mind,' to me, that is what it is to be an artist in the world and go through anything. And she's singing this song about, like, 'Oh my God, I'm grappling with my first major heartbreak, I'm torn apart by this. But oh man, it's given me access to new feelings,'" says Belflower in one long, breathless explanation. "What it's saying thematically about being a human being, moving through trauma, through pain, and making it to the other side and doing something with it—that is what these girls [in John Proctor] are doing. And that final dance, it had to be that song."

Belflower wrote all that in a letter to Lorde, feeling that if the singer said no, she would just scrap the entire play. But amazingly, Belflower's openhearted honesty won out—Lorde said yes. And now, every night on Broadway, Belflower gets to place her play next to one of her favorite songs. As she remarks with a giggle: "[Director Danya Taymor] said the other day, 'You've probably heard this song more times than anyone besides Lorde.'"

For Sink, who has to dance to "Green Light" every night, that moment in the show is similarly cathartic. Instead of taking the more didactic direction of having the characters verbalize their realizations, the dance is an honest portrayal of how, says Sink, "sometimes you don't have the answers to everything, it's just your actions that are speaking louder than words." And for Sink's character in particular, that moment "is actually crucial to the development of Shelby towards the end—of her finding that freedom within her body, taking ownership of it in her own way, and getting rid of some demons through this, like, exorcism."

While the posters for John Proctor prominently feature Sink, John Proctor is very much an ensemble piece. For the actor, who began her career being in a cohort of orphaned girls, John Proctor has reminded her of why she loves theatre.

“Returning back to Broadway after a very long time not doing theatre, being in such an ensemble piece—and a remarkable ensemble piece where everyone gets their chance to shine, and every character is important,�� she enthuses. “It’s such a perfect piece and the perfect group of people to be making this, kind of, scary return. It’s been such a dream.��

Likewise, it's been a dream for Belflower. On the day she found out that John Proctor is the Villain had been nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Play, Belflower took the time to think back on how far she's come: "I grew up in a small town in rural Appalachian Georgia; as a teenager, and for a long time after, I felt like I needed to shed my Southern-ness to be taken seriously as an artist. For John Proctor is the Villain, a play about Southern teenage girls, to be nominated for seven Tony Awards is so special I can hardly believe it."