Sadie Sink on her character's 'emotional rage' in ‘John Proctor Is the Villain' and her reaction to ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow'

Yahoo

08-05-2025

'When I first read The Crucible, I think it was in high school, and I was just trying to make it through the year, honestly' shares Sadie Sink with a laugh. The actress stars in the new Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain, which draws inspiration from the famous Arthur Miller play from 1953. In Kimberly Belflower's drama, Sink stars as Shelby, a high school junior who takes a leave of absence from school and returns in time for her class discussion of The Crucible, which coincides with the #MeToo movement rippling through her small community in Georgia. Sink recently sat down with Gold Derby to discuss the complexity of her character and her reaction to Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
Although only 23 years old, Sink is a Broadway veteran, appearing in the 2012 revival of Annie and later starring opposite Helen Mirren in her Tony-winning role in The Audience. 'I had such an amazing time on stage, and that's kind of where my love for acting was born,' reveals the actress, who says she has been hoping to return to Broadway: 'I was looking for ways to further my relationship with acting, especially as I'm becoming an adult.' After wrapping the final season of Netflix's Stranger Things and costarring with Oscar winner Brendan Fraser in The Whale, the performer thought John Proctor Is the Villain seemed like the 'perfect challenge,' explaining, 'I was really craving something smaller and more isolated that I could really connect with other creatives and cast members on.' The play also resonated with her because it 'could really matter and felt like really important work that needed to be shared on the biggest scale possible.' She describes it as 'one of the most fulfilling projects' she's ever tackled.
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Audiences do not meet Sink's character Shelby right away in John Proctor, as playwright Belflower allows folks to become familiar with the other characters and how they feel about Shelby first. But when Shelby does make her first entrance, Sink gets to deliver a heck of a funny and iconic first line. 'You just feel like the text is really holding you. … The lines are funny and good and strong,' reflects the actress about how it feels to hear the audience response to her arrival every night. She thinks it is also indicative of the playwright's 'genius,' because 'you hear a lot about this Shelby character, and we're really relying on the audience's prejudice against her or speculations they might have based on what other characters have led them to believe.'
SEE 'John Proctor Is the Villain' reviews tout 'explosive' play and Sadie Sink's 'body blow of a performance'
Sink reveals that the script describes Shelby as a girl whose 'brain moves faster than her mouth, but her mouth moves pretty dang fast.' This characterization is evident in the actress' bravura performance, but she also has some brilliantly complex moments of quiet and introspection. In one pivotal scene, Shelby's classmate Mason (Nihar Duvvuri) reads aloud John Proctor's famous final monologue from The Crucible. Shelby, who has separated herself from the group by this point, listens intently, and the audience sees the thoughts churning in Sink's head. 'That's one of the most complicated parts of the show, but also something that we just kind of naturally found in rehearsals,' reveals the Critics Choice Award nominee. Without revealing details of the plot, she explains that this is 'a lightbulb switch' moment in the young woman's mind: 'It's very layered. … More things are being triggered in that moment that maybe the audience won't know yet.'
One of the most important relationships in the play is between Shelby and her former best friend, Raelynn, played by Amalia Yoo. They begin the play estranged, but events unfold that bring them back together. In one scene, Shelby reveals a truth about herself, and Raelynn immediately shares that she believes her. 'I think that's all that Shelby really wants, she just wants to be seen and acknowledged, she doesn't care about what happens to her or what happens to the person who did that to her… it's just about feeling seen and supported by her best friend of all people, really.' The moment is especially impactful for the actress herself, too. She says, 'That's my soft place to land every night, hearing Amalia say that line, just because it's this wave of relief for Shelby.' The scene later evolves into a prolonged fit of laughter between the two characters. The performer admits that 'some nights it's harder than other' to keep the laughing up, 'depending on how tired we are, but we'll try and find ways to keep the laughs really fresh and weird.'
The final scene of the play is another standout for Sink, as Shelby and Raelynn take their experiences and express themselves through an interpretive dance based on characters from The Crucible set to Lorde's music. The performer shares that the most impactful line from the climax of the show has 'been changing' for her as she explores it further. 'You think the longer you sit with a script and a character, the more dull it becomes, but I've been finding that different things bring up other things that I didn't notice before, and that's just super beautiful,' expresses the actress. The scene later explodes in a fit of movement, which Sink says 'was so hard to crack,' explaining, 'There's that final release for Shelby that happens in a very physical way that always feels really good.' She credits director Danya Taymor, who won the Tony for directing musical The Outsiders last year, for the beautiful staging of the moment, adding, 'It all sings at the end.'
SEE our interview with Louis McCartney, 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow'
Although incredibly taxing, Sink says with a smile and laugh that she's 'doing OK' performing the scene eight times a week. 'It's always super cathartic at the end of the day,' reflects the actress, adding, 'I've never had to do anything like it, the combination of exerting that physical energy in such a short amount of time but also combined with the emotional rage or whatever it is that Shelby's releasing, so that creates the perfect storm, which hopefully is impacting audiences.' Indeed, the star of The Whale shares that it was a personal goal of her's for young audiences to come to the theater to see this show, and she hopes they take home the message that 'these girls are able to take what is left of their situation and take the hope out of it and change the world around them for a second.'
Right down the block from John Proctor Is the Villain is another Broadway show with connections to Sink, namely, Stranger Things: The First Shadow. That production serves as a prequel to the Netflix series on which Sink stars and centers on the origin story of Henry Creel, whose villainous Upside Down alter ego Vecna has a famous showdown with Sink's Max in the fourth season of the series. 'To see a little piece of Stranger Things across the street is very surreal,' admits the actress, who celebrates the play as 'an incredible production," adding, "I've never really seen anything like that on stage in terms of the visual effects of it all, it's super impressive.'
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