Director's Note: Witch

Posted October 26, 2026

WITCH DN Banner2026
 
"The ease with which people believed a woman was a witch came down to a simple mathematical equation of power: a woman alone had no one to defend her, making her the perfect scapegoat for a community's collective anxiety." 
-Marguerite Yourcenar, With Open Eyes
 

Any opportunity to delve into a Jen Silverman play is cause for celebration. I've been lucky enough to direct two of their plays here in the woods, The Moors and now Witch. Jen's plays are wildly theatrical, fiercely intelligent, and endlessly curious about systemic power dynamics. Witch is especially electrically charged as we enter a world where a devil arrives to town to offer people their heart's desire in exchange for their souls.

Inspired by a 17th century Jacobean play, The Witch of Edmonton, this adaptation imagines the story through a uniquely contemporary feminist lens. The titular character in Witch is Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman who prizes her autonomy. She's opinionated and doesn't play by the rules of society and, as a result, the townspeople are suspicious of her and label her a witch. 
 
Witch is a story about visibility and the lengths we go in order to be seen as we want to be seen. It's a play that interrogates who the world makes space for and who it does not. But more than anything, it's a play that revolves around essential questions of hope and despair. Can we have hope in a world that is as corrupt and power-hungry as the one we live in? How can we affect change if we're operating within a broken system? Do we have to destroy everything and start over, or can we change things around us to make life better? Witch asks these huge questions but with great care and compassion. 
 
Great art reflects the concerns of our times. In truth, I find it alarming how immediately this play speaks to our current moment. I believe we are all struggling with the idea of hope right now. But what better place to ask these important, dangerous, universal questions than in the theater? 
 
— Keira Fromm, Director of Witch