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- calendar_today October 27, 2026
American Players Theatre’s Season Finale: ‘Witch’
The American Players Theatre (APT) wraps up its 47th season with Witch, a dark comedy staged in the Touchstone Theatre. This marks the first APT production since earning the Regional Theatre Tony Award. With inspiration drawn from the Jacobean play The Witch of Edmonton, Witch offers a modern, feminist twist on themes of hope, power, and oppression.
Origins and Adaptation by Jen Silverman
Adapted by New York City-based playwright and novelist Jen Silverman, Witch is set in a time described as "then-ish but equally of our time." Silverman’s version weaves the essence of the witch play’s 17th-century roots with modern sensibilities, exploring love, ambition, family, despair, and hope through a contemporary feminist lens. The production blends laugh-out-loud humor with suspenseful, dark moments, particularly during its gripping final thirty minutes.
Main Characters and Performances
The story opens in darkness, as Elizabeth Sawyer—played by Colleen Madden—questions whether things can improve in a world that has treated her with suspicion and disdain. Ostracized for years as the so-called witch of her village, Elizabeth’s resilience sets the stage for the play’s exploration of female empowerment. The devil figure, known as Scratch and portrayed with charm and cunning by Nate Burger, arrives in Edmonton to barter souls for favors, targeting two rivals: Cuddy Banks (Trevyn Wong) and Frank Thorney (Casey Hoekstra).
As tensions rise, Scratch’s offers stoke the ambitions and desires of both young men. Cuddy, the melodramatic heir and son of Sir Arthur Banks (Triney Sandoval), seeks revenge, while Frank, a shrewd outsider, negotiates his own claim to the family fortune. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s resistance to Scratch’s temptations forces him to reassess his methods in scenes characterized by wit and intellectual sparring. Samantha Newcomb’s Winnifred, the only other woman in the cast, stands apart as the lone character to escape Scratch’s influence.
Design and Direction
The 201-seat Touchstone Theatre is transformed into a striking, minimalist set featuring a three-sided stage, wooden platforms, mossy ground, and a lone tree behind a curved scrim. Piped-in sounds of birds and crickets evoke the play’s outdoor scenes, blurring the line between the theatre’s interior and the Driftless woods outside. Director Keira Fromm’s casting delivers standout performances across the board, particularly from Madden and Newcomb, who embody women demanding respect in an unjust society. The male roles are equally well-executed, with Wong’s Cuddy providing comic relief and Hoekstra’s Frank capturing complexity and moral ambiguity.
Script, Tone, and Thematic Depth
Clocking in at 100 minutes without intermission, Witch is dialogue-driven and moves with deliberate momentum to a powerful conclusion. Silverman’s script combines dark comedy with themes of feminist theatre, confronting the nature of oppression, ambition, and hope. The closing moments of the play echo its opening, leaving the audience haunted by the devil’s final words and reflecting on the potential for change in a corrupt world.
Show Dates and Legacy
Witch runs through November 22. Jen Silverman’s work was previously featured at APT with The Moors in 2022, and Madison’s StageQ is set to stage The Moors starting October 30. This latest theatre production underscores the enduring power of classic stories reimagined for today’s audiences, with Witch standing as a testament to female empowerment, dark comedy, and the relevance of the witch play tradition.
Source: isthmus.com.
