June 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Dig into the Salem witch trials with playwright Matt Cox, whose play Witches?! In Salem!? offers a fresh perspective on one of history's most tragic episodes. This isn't your typical historical drama – Cox has crafted something that's both rigorously researched and surprisingly funny, managing to honor the victims while illuminating the very human motivations behind the 1692 tragedy.
Matt spent eight years developing this play, transforming it from a simple comedy about fantasy witches into a nuanced exploration of actual history and human nature. The result is a work that includes real fantasy witches who ironically never get blamed, while the innocent townspeople fall victim to fear, social pressure, and petty grievances that spiral devastatingly out of control.
As a descendant of Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty – two of the Salem victims – Sarah brings a personal perspective to this conversation about how historical trauma can be transformed into meaningful art. We'll explore how Matt incorporated real historical research, why he made specific creative choices, and how the play has evolved through different versions and productions.
At its heart, Witches?! In Salem!? reminds us that the people involved in Salem weren't monsters – they were humans like us, making it both a sobering reminder of our capacity for harm and, surprisingly, a source of hope for learning to do better. Join us as we discuss finding truth and even humor in one of history's darkest chapters.
Links
Read the Script: Witches!? in Salem?!
Matt Cox Website: Check out all his plays!
Buy the book: A Delusion of Satan by Francis Hill
The Thing About Salem YouTube
The Thing About Salem Patreon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack.
Today we are excited to talk with playwright Matt Cox about
his play Witches in Salem. It's a fresh take on the Salem
witch trials that manages to be both historically accurate and
surprisingly funny. Matt spent eight years
(00:21):
developing this play, transforming it from a simple
comedy about two fantasy witchesinto a nuanced exploration of
the actual history and human nature behind the 1692 tragedy.
As a descendant of Rebecca Nurseand Mary Estie, when I recently
saw a production of this play atEstes Park High School here in
Colorado, I was struck by how Witches in Salem manages to
(00:46):
honor the victims while also helping audiences understand the
very human motivations that led to such devastating
consequences. We'll be discussing how Matt
incorporated a real historical research, why he chose to
include actual fantasy witches who'd never get blamed, and how
the play has evolved through different versions.
(01:08):
Matt's approach reminds us that the people involved in Salem
weren't monsters. They were humans like us,
responding to fear, social pressure, and their own petty
grievances in ways that spiraledtragically out of control.
It's both a sobering reminder and, surprisingly, a source of
hope for learning to do better. So let's talk to Matt Cox about
(01:30):
witches in Salem and what it means to find truth and even
humor in one of history's darkest chapters.
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself and
tell us about your work. Hi, I'm Matt Cox.
I'm a playwright. I'm a writer based in New York
City and very specifically of interest of this show.
(01:51):
I wrote a play called Witches inSalem that ran in New York last
spring in 2024 and now is available through a licensing
company called Uproar Theatrics.So a lot of high schools and
regional theaters and whatnot are doing the show all around
the country, which is amazing. I recently attended a production
of your play at Estes Park High School in Colorado.
(02:14):
I loved it as a human and as a descendant of Reckoners and Mary
Este. It was very meaningful to me for
both of those reasons. Amazing.
That's that makes me happy to hear and yeah yeah, because it's
the play itself I guess a littlebit about it for anybody who may
want to know. Yeah, it's tries to be a very
like faithful retelling of sort of the actual history, while
(02:35):
also, you know, adding in sort of the aspects of modern day
that maybe correlate a little bit with it.
And sort of try to draw a horrible sense of like humor
from the fact that as much as time goes by, sometimes nothing
ever changes. And at some point you could
either sort of dread that in allyour life, or you could start to
laugh at it and try to figure out how we change that.
(02:57):
Which is and say, I'm just trying to tap into that mindset
throughout it. But in doing so, I've tried to
use as much from the actual history as I could.
And so that makes me very happy to hear because usually it's a
comedy, but the jokes tend to try to be at the expense of the
people who, at least from the research values of it, seem to
be the ones who caused it all tohappen.
And so you're only ever laughingat them and typically, at least
(03:17):
not at anyone who was a victim of the witch trials in Salem.
Yeah. Yeah, I have to say kudos on
getting all those facts in there.
I haven't been able to see it like Sarah has, but I've read it
and it's just amazing. Everything that you tell in
there. So many relevant points, points
(03:38):
that we've heard other people say on the show before.
Amazing. They are good.
We did it. Yeah.
No, it's funny. So I worked on this show for too
long. I think I worked up 8 years
before we've ultimately put it up and it went through quite a
journey in terms of its tone as well.
Because again, I started in like2016 after I saw a Broadway
(03:58):
production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller that was directed
by Ivo Van Ho, which was incredible.
But it had this one very specific moment towards the end
of I think the first act whenever like all the girls
start yelling for the first time.
And then all of a sudden the wind picked up and there was
like howling in my mind. It was just like, is this
implying that the magic is real?And that sort of set my mind
spinning because one of the premises of my show is
(04:21):
throughout all of the things that are happening, again, very
historical and at least trying to do it, there are two real,
like very fantasy coded witches who are present who just never
get blamed because ultimately that wasn't what it was about
from the people blaming them. So that origin came from me
seeing this production of the Crucible that had seemingly real
magic going on. And I was like, oh, what if
there were two real people therewho just never got blamed and
(04:42):
for a very long time for the history of the show.
It was just about them. And it was trying to be like an
odd couple comedy. And I very specifically had not
done any research about it was trying to go off of the
Crucible. And that was a little bit
because it was 2016 in the world, in the country was kind
of looking like a different place.
And then as things shifted and more and more of these things
became relevant, very sadly and tragically, I started being
(05:04):
like, well, this isn't as funny as it was a few years ago.
And then started doing a lot more of like the research.
And then the more and more I read, the more fascinating it
was. And all these things that I
never learned, even though I studied the Crucible like many
children do in school. And it's just these things are
just absolutely fascinating thatI was shocked never come up, at
least in these sort of historical things.
I was trying to get as much of that in as I could.
(05:26):
And then that's how the play evolved and eventually happened.
And a lot was left on the cutting room floor as well.
I always think there there is somuch to the actual story in
history that is it is terrible and shocking, but so much of it
you're just like, this has got to be a joke. 2.
(05:46):
So you were really and seeing iton the stage presented by
teenagers, the beginning of their life and their acting life
too. I can't imagine this will have a
huge impact on them. I'm so happy you're describing
how you came to put these different elements into the
story. It's fascinating to me.
(06:09):
I haven't had the opportunity tosee a high school perform it.
Yeah, I did one like reading of it with the group.
I do not remember specifically it was high school, but it was
at like a high school theater conference.
And so I'm hearing it even from them at that stage in time
because it was very much built for my sort of group of actors
in New York who are all in their30s, late 20s, mid 30s, which is
(06:29):
very different than high school kids doing.
And so I'm happy to see, though,that it seems to transcend,
especially given there's some relevancy to those ages,
certainly in the story and the history of it.
Yeah. What does witches in Salem even
mean? It's ultimately that's a very
sort of pessimistic take on that, even as much as we can.
This is, you know, a story that we learn about in high school
(06:53):
and many, many people do study. And yet it never really seems
like that truth settles in people in a way that they
actually learned the lessons from it.
Obviously a lot of people do, but like the people who make the
decisions seem to ultimately keep ending up in cycles of
making these same kinds of mistakes and putting people in
the same kinds of situations andmaking the world a worse place.
(07:13):
And it's trying to bring out thefacts about people like Thomas
Putnam and Samuel Paris, who at least the research that I was
using throughout this were very much instigators, just whatever
extent of this happening. And it's trying to find modern
day parallels with a lot of likemodern day politicians or
business people and things like that.
It's a very much about like the truth and how we learn from
(07:34):
history and also how we very often do not.
Yeah. And then there's a little bit of
like a Side Story within that ofjust like the act of adapting
history and how this, there isn't as much of this in the
play, I think ultimately as it was throughout the creation of
it. But I looked at a lot about how
most people know this story through like the Crucible or
something like that, and how much of that is the sort of
(07:57):
fabricated for the sake of fitting it onto a stage.
And there was a lot of the play that was about me having to do
that and starting from a place at least at one point of trying
to make it very historically accurate and then fighting all
the places where you have to go.You can't 'cause you can't have
at least we didn't have 30-40 actors in it.
So you have to start combining people.
And then what does that mean if that you're showing history, but
(08:17):
it's not actually history? And was trying to reckon with
that a little bit as well. So yeah, it's very much about
the truth in history and what either of those words actually
mean. Yeah, one of the things that
just as an audience member and Ias a descendant, obviously I
have that lens on. I'm always judging Salem
(08:39):
material through that lens and experience.
But one of the things that your play does, and maybe it wasn't
even supposed to be a really bigpart of it, but for me also, I'm
going to add one more layer as apodcast host talking to experts
about witch trials and witch hunts.
We're always discussing what could have been impacting these
(09:02):
people. What were the reasons?
How did it happen? What were their stresses?
Why was there this fear? And I just I loved how you put a
lot of those fears in there, even the simple one of them
waiting for that, for the governor to walk through the
door and like it. Someone who is trying to
understand the history can understand more about putting
(09:27):
themselves in the shoes of people in Salem in 1692 by
enjoying your story. So thank you.
I loved that piece. And then of course, I mean,
there were so many pieces. I don't want to give all the
things away, obviously, but Samuel Paris and his his his
wood, loving his wood and holding just seeing this kid
(09:47):
saying Sammy pairs holding this wood and then Dewey.
I'm so excited. My micro, my microphone's
jumping around. But that was so fabulous.
It was just when we say comedy or that we're laughing at it,
it's the human side of it that that was humorous.
A. Great example.
Yeah, because it's something very terrible happened because
(10:08):
some of the very petty human nature of these people and
things that we can still relate to so much.
But yeah, so it was like that's one thing I tried to cling on to
and it's obviously there's the actual real life thing of it was
much deeper than just the man was obsessed with like his this
the Samuel Paris reverend was very much obsessed with his
payment and all these superficial things like that.
(10:29):
But the easiest thing that I always try to use because his
payment was firewood and there'sa lot of things where he was in
dispute with the rest of the congregation about he's not
getting his firewood and just letting that be his one focus,
that all this happened because this man ordered his firewood.
Thomas Putnam didn't get what hewanted from his dad.
And the letting them how that sort of snowballs into other
people. See what these people are doing
(10:51):
and they're like, oh, they seem to be benefiting this.
Maybe I can, too. And I'm going to keep on adding
it and adding it until it grows so out of control.
Yeah, yeah. And I think the end that's
tragically been relevant throughout all of history.
And eventually, Yeah, as much asit's not funny, it is horribly
funny that these things can justspin out of it.
(11:11):
And I think at some point you have to laugh at.
I don't know how awful humans can be in some of the worst
times. Yeah.
That actually reminds me of one of my favorite characters in the
play is Satan. He's not in there very often,
but he tells you why he's not inthere very often in the
(11:32):
beginning, and it's that. Don't blame this on me.
This is the way that human nature works.
That's the point we've made so many times on the show.
You've got to look at the human beings who were responsible and
realize that they're just like us, aren't they?
And especially throughout like history in the one of the so the
(11:52):
Satan character is very funny. So I assume the version of the
high school when you saw did nothave that character in it.
Yes. So we offer because I can, I
imagine that a lot of schools probably don't want to do a play
necessarily that starts with Satan talking to them.
That's why I offered a version where that character's removed.
It just focuses on like a there's a young school, a 14
year old, 13 year old girl who she's in both versions, but the
other one, she just leads the story.
(12:13):
And funny enough, again, just bydevelopment of plays that came
about cause for the longest timeshe was the main focus.
Prior to her there was a versionor it was just Satan.
I replaced with them. And then, like, right before we
did the production, I was like, I still like the idea so much of
Satan starting the show and being like, I didn't have
anything to do with this, to spin off of that idea that,
yeah, throughout history, we're always looking for something to
blame that isn't us. So it's like the rye, what's
(12:38):
whatever the specific poisoning is, ergot.
Ergot. Yeah.
And things like, it's always looking for that, where it was
the religion or it was Satan or something like that.
And it's just like, no, you know, eventually you have to own
up to it. And that's the only way we can
learn from it. And we tend to not do that.
Yeah. And so the same character, when
we did it, at least in New York,I actually played that part as
well because it was standard at the last minute.
(12:59):
And I was like, well, we're not going to have another actor.
I'll do it. It'll be fun to pop in, do this
for a little bit. And I had a good time playing
it. Yeah.
Awesome. Yeah, I love that you have both
versions available for whatever an organization's comfort level
is. When I watched it, Satan was not
in it. And my sister, my sister went
with me to the production and she turned to me afterwards.
(13:22):
What did you think? And I said there was a really
important character I seen it was Satan.
Like it was an error. I just thought how you pulled
this off without actually havingthe devil as the culprit.
He was there. He was a culprit.
He just wasn't in the form of one of the actors.
It's if that that was so funny. And then I'm going in and
(13:44):
reading this, the other manuscript, like he started
right out with the devil. And I find it poignant because
the General Court of Massachusetts blamed him.
And that is what is on the record right now.
For those who have been exonerated, it says that they
were deluded by the devil. He used the phrase just the
(14:06):
diluted by Satan as being the thing.
Yeah. Specifically that's on the
reports of it. That was my favorite book.
The book that was sort of the most influential to this was the
Francis Hill's Delusion of Satan, which I do highly
recommend if people have not ever read that, because it gave
me all of the bits of history where I was like, Oh my
goodness, how have I never heardabout this?
There were so many of that in that book, which is constantly
that. And it's the namesake of the.
(14:28):
Yeah. And Putnam's speech later on
where it was just like, oh, it wasn't me, it was Satan.
Yeah, which, yes, is just fascinating.
One of the other things that I really appreciate is what you
did for Tituba with your piece. We're able to have a memorial
brick installed, Tituba's name on it at the House of the Seven
(14:51):
Gables, and I did that because her name is only It's not often
in memory. It's part of this juicy story,
and she was just a woman, an enslaved woman.
But I really enjoyed that you were able to not just have her
(15:14):
depicted as a character in your play, but that you talked about
who she was. Yeah, that was a big part of the
development process of me going back and forth of how much I
even wanted that. Just because by nature, if I am
a white male playwright, I don'tknow how much I necessarily have
to fully to say about this. But the absence of it whenever
it wasn't there just felt a little bit too much.
(15:35):
Just given again of how much of it is about the adaptation of
truth and about this lessons that we learned.
It did feel like an important part of just because, again,
going back to the Crucible and that being where so much of
people's knowledge they think they have comes with and how
much she's positioned as the instigator to far more of an
(15:56):
extent that she actually is. Just felt like something I
wanted to at least touch and be like, well, here's the actual,
at least as far as people can agree is the actual history.
Because obviously that's something that even today they
don't quite know because the records just aren't there.
But yeah, no, it felt very important to try to get the
actual history. That is often wrong.
But yes, I'm glad that was appreciated.
(16:18):
Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate the
references in there to the Crucible and the corrections
that you make to the Crucible. Basically, Abigail Williams was
11 or 12, and she wasn't sleeping with John Proctor, who
was actually in his 60s. So it's important to mention
(16:38):
those things, yeah. And it was trying again, because
the play went through so many iterations.
There was one version at some point in time that was much more
of, oh, we're going to parody the Crucible a little bit.
But then it just wasn't, it wasn't as like satisfying
because it was just like, oh, it's wrong again.
So I was just trying to find thethings that are so prevalent and
in people's minds and trying to at least be like, that's
(17:00):
actually not how it went down, just enough.
But actually, I kind of like that it doesn't really focus on
it too much and sort of acts as its own little piece of Salem on
stage. Yeah, absolutely it.
I don't. I didn't feel like I was
experiencing the same old thing at all.
It's totally new. Of all the adaptations we've
(17:22):
seen to the history. And that, I don't know.
It is really, really marvelous what you did with the story.
The, the witch and the wizard, The witch, the actual, the pop
culture witch and the wizard. What a brilliant element.
How did that make it into the story?
Yeah, so I loosely touched this earlier.
So originally the play was just fully about these two characters
(17:42):
and it named Xanatar and Bella Vera.
Their function in the play as itis right now is they have a much
smaller part than they used to. But it is for anyone who hasn't
seen it and read it. Yeah, there's throughout this
show, every once in a while, once we're in the church,
whenever finally all of the villagers of Salem, the village
and the town sort of find out. Whenever it's announced that
there's witches here and we're going to put them in there where
they're going to start trying toturn people, get it against them
(18:05):
and rile up the town. In walks a woman who is very
clearly a witch, and she's soon joined by someone who is very
clearly a wizard. And one of the original jokes of
the show that still maintains itis it's like there's witches in
Salem and then these two characters sort of just going
like, what? What?
No God that can't be. And so their function in the
show is just to be like, if it'sa very on the nose way of
(18:27):
showing that this wasn't about looking for witches, actual
witches, because in this versionof the story, there's two very
clear real witches and Wizards right there doing blatant
witches and wizard things. But, you know, we're after land
and other things, not that in Syria.
Originally, the play was very much about them and just
(18:47):
following them, experiencing thewitch trials and having a little
bit more of a presence in it. And eventually, the only time
this is an old, old draft, the story like the wizard finally
did get blamed, but it was because he accidentally stumbled
into learning the truth. And then I'd go, wow, this guy's
a wizard. And yeah, But as more and more
of the research, the more and more I read books as a good
(19:10):
playwright should when reading something in history, the more
and more I was interested in focusing on the actual story of
it. But because the original idea
was about this, and I thought itstill held such a good, Again,
going back to that, it's not about witches and Wizards.
It was such a good little juicy thing.
And it was an easy way to still have some good bits in it
because I am predominantly a comedy writer.
(19:32):
Yeah. Yeah, on that point, I've got to
say we've been talking about howmuch history there is in the
play. It's not at all overwhelming.
It doesn't even come up on whelming.
It's a nicely dosed throughout the story and presented
entertainingly so people are laughing while they're learning
it. It's awesome way to do it.
(19:55):
That was always the hope with it.
Yeah, it's always. I am very much as a writer.
I try to think of things as presented as more like a ride,
to whatever extent. There's ups and downs going on a
journey with me and everything that I write.
And I wanted to try to make sure, as much as this has
informative tidbits, that it's always presented in such a way
that you're not bored and you'reevening out at the theater.
(20:16):
When I got to the high school, some of the family were talking
about how long it was going to be and I was like really?
It's that long? Because and it was AI think
their production was almost 3 hours.
It was a long one, but it just went by because I know, I think
I know the story so well. I kind of knew what was up
around the bend, but I didn't. That's what is so enjoyable
(20:38):
about this, because there's lotsof surprises and the characters
are just so rich and they reallylike when you're thinking about
stories from history, these are the kinds of characters you want
to meet that have the real feelings and share their mind
(21:00):
and have these interactions. You really portrayed that.
OK, yeah, yeah, again, I sort ofcomes back to my style as a
writer. I So I have an improv background
and I did a lot of studying at the Upright Citizens Brigade
here. And there's the concept called
the game in a scene where it's you pick, you find like the
first weird or interesting thing, and then you hit that
(21:20):
over and over again and you examine that from as many sides
as you can of how to keep that interesting.
And so I tend to, whenever I write a character, I try to find
that one interesting thing and then explore it from all the
angles. And I having, again, real people
to at least loosely based that off, whether it's their
historical nature or the way they've been presented and other
(21:41):
media and things like that. That's how I tried to tackle
each of the characters in this Salem story by finding either
the one thing that we do know about them or the kids like some
of more of their actual like real life, like neuroticisms
that probably like Betty Paris, who's my reverend's daughter and
trying to do the modern day pop culture sensibility of.
Oh yeah, that there's a lot of pressure in trying to be that
(22:02):
perfect one. And oh, of course you would
probably be have a emotional andmental breakdown whenever being
asked to be a part of something like the accusations and
whatnot. Yeah.
And so I try to do that with every single character.
So I'm glad at least that they. Are.
Popping off on the stage still. Absolutely.
(22:22):
And the characters come to such great insights in the story as
well. There's one in there that really
stood out to me. That's a character talking about
how goody good makes her feel. She's like, goody good is always
asking me for something and I'm always saying no.
But then I feel guilty about saying no.
(22:42):
And we've had that conversation with a couple of the experts on
witch trials before. And it is a thing that people
feel guilty for not giving, and they end up, in turn, blaming
that person, you know, for even asking.
And so people got accused of witchcraft for exactly that
reason all over the world. So.
(23:05):
Yeah, it's it's, again, it's oneof those aspects of stuff that
that you can take that and put that on several different
societal groups nowadays and howthey are villainized or other by
whatever agenda that exists out there.
And so it's, again, it's just all we loop back and forth over
to these things. And it would have been the same
thing in the play. Its function is to be like,
yeah, this is how they're slowlyturning people into the idea of
(23:28):
like, oh, you get to blame somebody for your bad feelings
that isn't yourself. Isn't that great?
Isn't it cool that you don't have to deal with this on your
own side? And then of course, because part
of it was in doing all of that, while it's very much clear that
we're trying to show this, yeah,what this person by riling that
person up to in order to blame and ultimately kill these people
is bad. There was at least the trying to
(23:49):
have the slightest bit of like, if you were in that seat, could
you have been convinced as well?By the same way, if by Thomas
Putnam, saying these things out loud and bring it to you is like
at least trying to have some aspect where the actor can try
to play the convincing part, even though a good modern day
audience will probably look at him with judgement.
(24:11):
But yeah. Well, I think that's really key,
what you're pointing out. And again, we have been looking
at this on our podcast a lot that it's not just monsters that
do terrible things. It's all of us that are human.
Sometimes something just goes too far and it doesn't mean that
(24:33):
person was necessarily worse than it is a different type of
human. It's our type of human.
And you could definitely, as a audience member, I could
definitely put myself in the shoes of any of those
characters. I didn't like it.
I enjoyed the the teen girls perspective on what was
(24:55):
happening around them. Loved that.
But I could see where Putnam andParis, how they were buddying up
and what they're, what they weredoing there too.
I'm like, yeah, I can see that you.
Know in 1692, all of them were experiencing this like horrible
winter. They there was a war at their
doorstep. People are getting sick all the
time. There was this big political
(25:16):
division in the town. And so it was also trying to
find as many different ways to like this, not things that
ultimately did have so much to do with it.
But we don't think of it as alsobeing the things that are
happening, like, right now. And they're also causing all of
these divisions where people arefinding ways to other and get
mad at other people that it's all just there.
Yeah. It's it's that is the big part
(25:37):
why I kept wanting to write thisstory because of that, all that
just kept making itself seem so evident.
Yeah. We see so much, so many of those
things in our own society and around the world that 'cause
these problems. But still, everybody wants to
assign that one simple reason toexplain away, Salem, like the
(26:00):
ergot you touched on earlier. Or they'll say, oh, it was
encephalitis or it was just hysteria.
Everybody went hysterical and started pointing fingers at
everybody. But it's just people like us
getting off on the wrong track. Yeah.
I think people like a clean explanation, and sadly, the
(26:22):
world very rarely actually has aclean explanation for anything.
But we love to assign things that, yeah, I don't know, that
is just human nature. It's also against no one's other
than some stories do often timeshave villains.
Often times there's a lot of people that are just on the
outskirts of it, and it's what you do with the information
after the fact. As much as then, you know, a lot
(26:43):
of people back then who were Privy on the outside of this all
did come to their senses at somepoint.
It did feel a great sense of shame and I don't know, I guess
that's the part of it that's interesting.
That why we still keep coming back to it though, because not
everybody does learn their lessons.
Yeah, yeah. How did writing this story, how
has it impacted your new work orthe way you tackle your writing?
(27:07):
You know? Yeah.
So what part of it was just through pure from just a
technical standpoint of writing something for eight years and
having 8 to 10 probably different versions of how the
story was being told was just incredibly helpful for me as a
writer. So the more and more of like the
research and how to write something off of research was
something I hadn't really ever done before either.
(27:29):
And see, and it's definitely made me.
I want to I have to figure out what the subject is.
But through my work of this, I do want to tackle another
historical project and again, try to find something that is
maybe something we think we know, but we don't actually know
as much of. I have a very strong yearning to
experiencing that again, but that's that I am taking some
time before that because I don'tnecessarily know if I have
(27:50):
another six year, eight-year process in me.
But yeah. So it's certainly that journey
of it. I also, it was like one of the
first shows that I tried to put on back the city posts, like the
pandemic, which also just had its own whole series of lessons
because especially here in New York, the theater scene,
especially small plays like this, that we weren't on
Broadway. We're at this off Off Broadway
(28:11):
theatre. We had like 98 seats, something
like that. And that world still really
hasn't recovered in any way. And trying to figure out how to
get these stories in front of people is evolving process.
I was very happy with our run when we did it in the city.
We actually were able to sell quite well, which was shocking.
(28:31):
So they were just the practical lessons like that.
Yeah, I guess it's mostly that Ireally enjoyed it and I want to
do it again with something else.I think you're a role model for
other creators to have taken historical people, make this
beautiful fiction and then get that pop culture element in
(28:52):
there, so. Yeah, good.
My I tend to as a writer, I focus mostly on like genre
stories, things like this. So this was while it still has
very little lot of elements of that.
It is more of a yeah, just a a story a a real story and I'm
glad that comes across yeah, 'cause most of my other work my
the play that I most not for is this one called Puffs or 7
increasingly eventful years in acertain school of magic magic,
(29:13):
which is like a Rosencrantz and Gilden Stern are dead style like
Side Story about a certain boy wizard that a lot of people are
familiar with. And so that's the world that I
usually work in. And so this was a very fun thing
that I basically worked with at the same time, which is probably
why some of the more fantasticalelements seeped in just because
by nature, if I was living in a fantasy world most of the time.
(29:34):
And I think what I love about theater and writing plays,
because you're ultimately makingsomething for these actors to
inhabit. And so one of the reasons I love
writing Pups was because people get to put on wizard capes and
they get to live out that fantasy.
And then this is a completely other thing where you are
actually having you get to have the opportunity to, there's a
learning part of it. You're inhabiting a real person.
(29:55):
And This is why I love that it is now in, like, the hands of
high schools and that they get to have this opportunity that
is, well, it's similar and fun. There is this other element of
like, it's a challenge, I think,for them to get to step into
these types of roles. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Before we move on to talk about
what's next for you, I want to ask you first.
(30:18):
Is there anything about witches in Salem that you wanted to talk
about today that we haven't touched on yet?
I feel like we've mostly coveredeverything we went through all
the history of it. I'm very happy.
I think the one biggest thing with it, yeah.
So if anyone is interested in reading the script, any of the
multiple versions of it, it's available through a company
(30:39):
called Uproar Theatrics, uproartheatrics.com.
They have the scripts available for a free perusal there.
And especially if you're looking, you know, if you run a
theatre group or something like that.
Are you looking for a new play? That's a great place to look for
it. As mentioned, there's several
versions of it. There's one that's more for
adults, that's the exact versionthat we performed in New York.
(30:59):
There's another one that cuts Satan out of it and that's
specifically for high schools. There's another one that's like
a 45 minute version that's for play competitions and that one's
fascinating. So again we have there's the
Satan version where Satan is sort of the book end of the
story. There's one that's just this
teenage girl telling the story, and then there's another one
that fully removes her, and it'smore focuses entirely on the how
(31:21):
the witches interact with in thereal history of it.
If you're also just interested to see how many different ways
of play can be put out there, it's a fascinating take on that.
We're weirdly, the 10 year development process of it
benefited it. Yeah.
Something I guess I just find sointeresting about having worked
on this play for so long was a favorite quote of mine that I
(31:42):
was never able to refind. I guess I know I read it at some
point that I could never find itagain.
So who knows if I am actually making it up.
But there was a quote from Arthur Miller where at one point
he said that he had done so muchresearch that he could not
remember what he had made-up andwhat was true, which is where
some of like the Abigail stuff and everything comes from.
(32:03):
And if the whole time when I wasearly on in the process, I was
like, oh, that's silly. And then I got to last year, I
was like, I'm in the same boat. And I felt the need to try to
get that feeling into the show to some extent as well.
I just think that that's interesting.
I think it's interesting the waywe adapt history and you can't
help but be the sort of God for.And well, this is how I think it
(32:24):
happened. So here's how maybe it happened.
Yeah. And I hope that I think there's
many different ways to experience witches.
And I hope that people out therecan get at least some of.
This out of it, it enables us tolook at it in a comfortable way.
There's fear in the story, but I'm not looking at it fearfully.
(32:45):
I love that. Hopefully it gives people a
comfort level of taking a peek at the history, even though they
may not be so sure. Well, I'm not so sure about the
devil or these women or witches or magic.
You can still step into this creation and just look around.
There's so much in it. It's great to revisit it.
(33:08):
I loved going back and reading the script after seeing it.
I'm so glad. Great.
Yeah, that's, I guess that is just ultimately that is the hope
with it that anyone, no matter what, where you're coming from,
like whatever even background orbelieves there's some.
I think that there is something.I think it tries to just present
the story as it is. Obviously, I can't help but put
on some of my own personal beliefs within it, but I tried
(33:30):
to withhold from that as much aspossible so that I think many
people would be able to take from it what they want.
But no matter what, they're still like a baseline of truth
and reality in it. And I guess that's interesting.
It is. I think as humans we look for
the people to blame. But if we're getting blamed for
something, we try to pull in other people like, well, it's
(33:51):
all of us. So what does that mean when
we're looking at Salem? There was responsibility on a
lot of people for that, and that's comes out in the story.
Yeah, it was so great. And I think it's really
wonderful to help you give that creative license to those who
are going to put it on stage. How are they going to portray
(34:15):
the hangings? And I as a descendant was
nervous about that part. And it was high school level, of
course, but I they did it with dignity and it was really moving
how they did it. The way they chose to do it was
they just flashed a red light and then the woman that was
getting hanged just did this. They had like a gallows prop
(34:35):
that was beautiful. It was big and almost like
framing the stage, these gallows.
But then when they did that, those moments in the story, it
was very powerful. And again, even to that point
for anyone, we've talked a lot about how to play is funny and
entertaining. It is very much built so that
(34:56):
one of the reasons I tried to make it sort of this roller
coaster ride over. You're laughing a lot.
And then when you hit that pointof it, it was very purposeful.
Like, no, now we're going to like hit a wall.
And it's like it's no longer funny at this moment in time
because now all of these consequences, it actually caught
up to the people. And so that's where, OK, there
is full freedom because their comfort level is going to be
(35:17):
different no matter where peopleare coming from.
That sort of visual imagery. And I guess it can be powerful
in many different ways. So I'll obviously think it's the
horror of seeing the objects is something that was always
interests me. A red light and emotion will
also get it across. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the story of Salem is just
(35:40):
so interesting in itself that ityou didn't have to invent a lot.
You just went with the story that was already there, threw in
some comedic elements, emphasizesome things that were funny
about it, really stuck to it because it's so interesting.
Yeah. That's which is in Salem.
(36:01):
Your website is awesome. Look good.
And all of your work is a lot. There's so much to look at on
there. Tell us about what people will
find when they go to your website.
Www.mattcoxland.com It needs an update.
Let me tell you that. Maybe I will soon.
Yeah, upcoming. Right now, I have a like you can
(36:21):
give some of the information about other things I've worked
on in the past. The big one being the play
puffs, which a lot of high schools and regional theaters do
perform. So there's a good chance that
every once in a while there's a prediction happening near you.
You enjoy the story of a certainboy wizard and what to see it
from another perspective. I have another play that I wrote
Once Upon a time called Kapowiegogo, which was the sort
of big epic 5 hour long like Saturday morning cartoon anime,
(36:44):
fantasy, sci-fi, throwing everything in the wall.
Currently if you do find yourself in New York, I run a
like monthly ish show called Giant Sky Beam at the Second
City Theatre in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
That's where me and my writing partner and Stephen Stout, we
pick a different genre and we write a script very quickly and
(37:04):
rehearse it. We have one upcoming soon that's
like a sports movie. It's called The King of the
Ping, for the Love of the Pong. It's going to be very silly and
similar to that, sometime over the summer we're going to be
revamping one of those plays that we did.
It's called 2002. It's a story about high school
and time travel. And then be on the lookout with
one other big project I have coming up is a musical called
(37:26):
True Crime Frankenstein. It's written with a wonderful
artist named Eli Bolin that's anadaptation of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein, but by way of a true crime podcast.
And I'm has some similar elements to which is insane,
certainly. Actually, we can look after that
and you know what, those are allgoing to be on my website soon
because I have been a bad artistand not kept up with that.
(37:51):
Well, as it is, though, there's like when I website experiences
for users can be different things and you feel once you get
on there, you feel like, oh, I'mgoing to take some time to look
through this. What's what's this puffs and
what's the is it the egg scream on there?
Yeah, I I'm a sound designer as well for like my plays.
(38:13):
I do all like for witches. We offer an old high school
friend of mine named Brian Matolius does all the music for
the shows that I write. And then I'll make a sound file
for it. And that was one from Puffs.
Just me screaming into a microphone.
But I thought it was funny to put.
It on there. That's awesome yeah.
So updates will be great, but it's still a really great site
(38:35):
to check out to get A, to get a feel for your skills and talent
and yeah. Thank you so much.
That's very much. Yeah, yeah.
How can our audience support you?
Yeah, for the most part, it's ifyou find to see a production of
pups happening to you, go check it out.
You can follow me. I'm Coxy, Loxy, COXXYLOXXY on
(38:55):
Instagram. That's really the only social
media I vaguely keep up with andthat's where I do my most
updates of what's coming soon. We'll probably actually be doing
a crowd fund sort of Kickstartertype thing for a play that's
upcoming to mind soon. So if you keep an eye out on
either the website or my Instagram, I'll have information
about that probably in the coming months.
That is a way to directly support me.
(39:17):
Otherwise, yeah, if you're interested in Pups, you can rent
it. We have a film version of it
that we filmed when we were Off Broadway that's available
basically where you can rent or stream anything, YouTube,
Amazon, all the places. Yeah.
That'll is it. Also a way to directly support
the work, Yeah. This was awesome, wasn't it?
Well, we love discussing Salem alot.
(39:39):
Make sure you catch our other podcasts, The Thing About Salem
to hear more Salem. Have a great today and a
beautiful tomorrow.
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack.
Today we are excited to talk with playwright Matt Cox about
his play Witches in Salem. It's a fresh take on the Salem
witch trials that manages to be both historically accurate and
surprisingly funny. Matt spent eight years
(00:21):
developing this play, transforming it from a simple
comedy about two fantasy witchesinto a nuanced exploration of
the actual history and human nature behind the 1692 tragedy.
As a descendant of Rebecca Nurseand Mary Estie, when I recently
saw a production of this play atEstes Park High School here in
Colorado, I was struck by how Witches in Salem manages to
(00:46):
honor the victims while also helping audiences understand the
very human motivations that led to such devastating
consequences. We'll be discussing how Matt
incorporated a real historical research, why he chose to
include actual fantasy witches who'd never get blamed, and how
the play has evolved through different versions.
(01:08):
Matt's approach reminds us that the people involved in Salem
weren't monsters. They were humans like us,
responding to fear, social pressure, and their own petty
grievances in ways that spiraledtragically out of control.
It's both a sobering reminder and, surprisingly, a source of
hope for learning to do better. So let's talk to Matt Cox about
(01:30):
witches in Salem and what it means to find truth and even
humor in one of history's darkest chapters.
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself and
tell us about your work. Hi, I'm Matt Cox.
I'm a playwright. I'm a writer based in New York
City and very specifically of interest of this show.
(01:51):
I wrote a play called Witches inSalem that ran in New York last
spring in 2024 and now is available through a licensing
company called Uproar Theatrics.So a lot of high schools and
regional theaters and whatnot are doing the show all around
the country, which is amazing. I recently attended a production
of your play at Estes Park High School in Colorado.
(02:14):
I loved it as a human and as a descendant of Reckoners and Mary
Este. It was very meaningful to me for
both of those reasons. Amazing.
That's that makes me happy to hear and yeah yeah, because it's
the play itself I guess a littlebit about it for anybody who may
want to know. Yeah, it's tries to be a very
like faithful retelling of sort of the actual history, while
(02:35):
also, you know, adding in sort of the aspects of modern day
that maybe correlate a little bit with it.
And sort of try to draw a horrible sense of like humor
from the fact that as much as time goes by, sometimes nothing
ever changes. And at some point you could
either sort of dread that in allyour life, or you could start to
laugh at it and try to figure out how we change that.
(02:57):
Which is and say, I'm just trying to tap into that mindset
throughout it. But in doing so, I've tried to
use as much from the actual history as I could.
And so that makes me very happy to hear because usually it's a
comedy, but the jokes tend to try to be at the expense of the
people who, at least from the research values of it, seem to
be the ones who caused it all tohappen.
And so you're only ever laughingat them and typically, at least
(03:17):
not at anyone who was a victim of the witch trials in Salem.
Yeah. Yeah, I have to say kudos on
getting all those facts in there.
I haven't been able to see it like Sarah has, but I've read it
and it's just amazing. Everything that you tell in
there. So many relevant points, points
(03:38):
that we've heard other people say on the show before.
Amazing. They are good.
We did it. Yeah.
No, it's funny. So I worked on this show for too
long. I think I worked up 8 years
before we've ultimately put it up and it went through quite a
journey in terms of its tone as well.
Because again, I started in like2016 after I saw a Broadway
(03:58):
production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller that was directed
by Ivo Van Ho, which was incredible.
But it had this one very specific moment towards the end
of I think the first act whenever like all the girls
start yelling for the first time.
And then all of a sudden the wind picked up and there was
like howling in my mind. It was just like, is this
implying that the magic is real?And that sort of set my mind
spinning because one of the premises of my show is
(04:21):
throughout all of the things that are happening, again, very
historical and at least trying to do it, there are two real,
like very fantasy coded witches who are present who just never
get blamed because ultimately that wasn't what it was about
from the people blaming them. So that origin came from me
seeing this production of the Crucible that had seemingly real
magic going on. And I was like, oh, what if
there were two real people therewho just never got blamed and
(04:42):
for a very long time for the history of the show.
It was just about them. And it was trying to be like an
odd couple comedy. And I very specifically had not
done any research about it was trying to go off of the
Crucible. And that was a little bit
because it was 2016 in the world, in the country was kind
of looking like a different place.
And then as things shifted and more and more of these things
became relevant, very sadly and tragically, I started being
(05:04):
like, well, this isn't as funny as it was a few years ago.
And then started doing a lot more of like the research.
And then the more and more I read, the more fascinating it
was. And all these things that I
never learned, even though I studied the Crucible like many
children do in school. And it's just these things are
just absolutely fascinating thatI was shocked never come up, at
least in these sort of historical things.
I was trying to get as much of that in as I could.
(05:26):
And then that's how the play evolved and eventually happened.
And a lot was left on the cutting room floor as well.
I always think there there is somuch to the actual story in
history that is it is terrible and shocking, but so much of it
you're just like, this has got to be a joke. 2.
(05:46):
So you were really and seeing iton the stage presented by
teenagers, the beginning of their life and their acting life
too. I can't imagine this will have a
huge impact on them. I'm so happy you're describing
how you came to put these different elements into the
story. It's fascinating to me.
(06:09):
I haven't had the opportunity tosee a high school perform it.
Yeah, I did one like reading of it with the group.
I do not remember specifically it was high school, but it was
at like a high school theater conference.
And so I'm hearing it even from them at that stage in time
because it was very much built for my sort of group of actors
in New York who are all in their30s, late 20s, mid 30s, which is
(06:29):
very different than high school kids doing.
And so I'm happy to see, though,that it seems to transcend,
especially given there's some relevancy to those ages,
certainly in the story and the history of it.
Yeah. What does witches in Salem even
mean? It's ultimately that's a very
sort of pessimistic take on that, even as much as we can.
This is, you know, a story that we learn about in high school
(06:53):
and many, many people do study. And yet it never really seems
like that truth settles in people in a way that they
actually learned the lessons from it.
Obviously a lot of people do, but like the people who make the
decisions seem to ultimately keep ending up in cycles of
making these same kinds of mistakes and putting people in
the same kinds of situations andmaking the world a worse place.
(07:13):
And it's trying to bring out thefacts about people like Thomas
Putnam and Samuel Paris, who at least the research that I was
using throughout this were very much instigators, just whatever
extent of this happening. And it's trying to find modern
day parallels with a lot of likemodern day politicians or
business people and things like that.
It's a very much about like the truth and how we learn from
(07:34):
history and also how we very often do not.
Yeah. And then there's a little bit of
like a Side Story within that ofjust like the act of adapting
history and how this, there isn't as much of this in the
play, I think ultimately as it was throughout the creation of
it. But I looked at a lot about how
most people know this story through like the Crucible or
something like that, and how much of that is the sort of
(07:57):
fabricated for the sake of fitting it onto a stage.
And there was a lot of the play that was about me having to do
that and starting from a place at least at one point of trying
to make it very historically accurate and then fighting all
the places where you have to go.You can't 'cause you can't have
at least we didn't have 30-40 actors in it.
So you have to start combining people.
And then what does that mean if that you're showing history, but
(08:17):
it's not actually history? And was trying to reckon with
that a little bit as well. So yeah, it's very much about
the truth in history and what either of those words actually
mean. Yeah, one of the things that
just as an audience member and Ias a descendant, obviously I
have that lens on. I'm always judging Salem
(08:39):
material through that lens and experience.
But one of the things that your play does, and maybe it wasn't
even supposed to be a really bigpart of it, but for me also, I'm
going to add one more layer as apodcast host talking to experts
about witch trials and witch hunts.
We're always discussing what could have been impacting these
(09:02):
people. What were the reasons?
How did it happen? What were their stresses?
Why was there this fear? And I just I loved how you put a
lot of those fears in there, even the simple one of them
waiting for that, for the governor to walk through the
door and like it. Someone who is trying to
understand the history can understand more about putting
(09:27):
themselves in the shoes of people in Salem in 1692 by
enjoying your story. So thank you.
I loved that piece. And then of course, I mean,
there were so many pieces. I don't want to give all the
things away, obviously, but Samuel Paris and his his his
wood, loving his wood and holding just seeing this kid
(09:47):
saying Sammy pairs holding this wood and then Dewey.
I'm so excited. My micro, my microphone's
jumping around. But that was so fabulous.
It was just when we say comedy or that we're laughing at it,
it's the human side of it that that was humorous.
A. Great example.
Yeah, because it's something very terrible happened because
(10:08):
some of the very petty human nature of these people and
things that we can still relate to so much.
But yeah, so it was like that's one thing I tried to cling on to
and it's obviously there's the actual real life thing of it was
much deeper than just the man was obsessed with like his this
the Samuel Paris reverend was very much obsessed with his
payment and all these superficial things like that.
(10:29):
But the easiest thing that I always try to use because his
payment was firewood and there'sa lot of things where he was in
dispute with the rest of the congregation about he's not
getting his firewood and just letting that be his one focus,
that all this happened because this man ordered his firewood.
Thomas Putnam didn't get what hewanted from his dad.
And the letting them how that sort of snowballs into other
people. See what these people are doing
(10:51):
and they're like, oh, they seem to be benefiting this.
Maybe I can, too. And I'm going to keep on adding
it and adding it until it grows so out of control.
Yeah, yeah. And I think the end that's
tragically been relevant throughout all of history.
And eventually, Yeah, as much asit's not funny, it is horribly
funny that these things can justspin out of it.
(11:11):
And I think at some point you have to laugh at.
I don't know how awful humans can be in some of the worst
times. Yeah.
That actually reminds me of one of my favorite characters in the
play is Satan. He's not in there very often,
but he tells you why he's not inthere very often in the
(11:32):
beginning, and it's that. Don't blame this on me.
This is the way that human nature works.
That's the point we've made so many times on the show.
You've got to look at the human beings who were responsible and
realize that they're just like us, aren't they?
And especially throughout like history in the one of the so the
(11:52):
Satan character is very funny. So I assume the version of the
high school when you saw did nothave that character in it.
Yes. So we offer because I can, I
imagine that a lot of schools probably don't want to do a play
necessarily that starts with Satan talking to them.
That's why I offered a version where that character's removed.
It just focuses on like a there's a young school, a 14
year old, 13 year old girl who she's in both versions, but the
other one, she just leads the story.
(12:13):
And funny enough, again, just bydevelopment of plays that came
about cause for the longest timeshe was the main focus.
Prior to her there was a versionor it was just Satan.
I replaced with them. And then, like, right before we
did the production, I was like, I still like the idea so much of
Satan starting the show and being like, I didn't have
anything to do with this, to spin off of that idea that,
yeah, throughout history, we're always looking for something to
blame that isn't us. So it's like the rye, what's
(12:38):
whatever the specific poisoning is, ergot.
Ergot. Yeah.
And things like, it's always looking for that, where it was
the religion or it was Satan or something like that.
And it's just like, no, you know, eventually you have to own
up to it. And that's the only way we can
learn from it. And we tend to not do that.
Yeah. And so the same character, when
we did it, at least in New York,I actually played that part as
well because it was standard at the last minute.
(12:59):
And I was like, well, we're not going to have another actor.
I'll do it. It'll be fun to pop in, do this
for a little bit. And I had a good time playing
it. Yeah.
Awesome. Yeah, I love that you have both
versions available for whatever an organization's comfort level
is. When I watched it, Satan was not
in it. And my sister, my sister went
with me to the production and she turned to me afterwards.
(13:22):
What did you think? And I said there was a really
important character I seen it was Satan.
Like it was an error. I just thought how you pulled
this off without actually havingthe devil as the culprit.
He was there. He was a culprit.
He just wasn't in the form of one of the actors.
It's if that that was so funny. And then I'm going in and
(13:44):
reading this, the other manuscript, like he started
right out with the devil. And I find it poignant because
the General Court of Massachusetts blamed him.
And that is what is on the record right now.
For those who have been exonerated, it says that they
were deluded by the devil. He used the phrase just the
(14:06):
diluted by Satan as being the thing.
Yeah. Specifically that's on the
reports of it. That was my favorite book.
The book that was sort of the most influential to this was the
Francis Hill's Delusion of Satan, which I do highly
recommend if people have not ever read that, because it gave
me all of the bits of history where I was like, Oh my
goodness, how have I never heardabout this?
There were so many of that in that book, which is constantly
that. And it's the namesake of the.
(14:28):
Yeah. And Putnam's speech later on
where it was just like, oh, it wasn't me, it was Satan.
Yeah, which, yes, is just fascinating.
One of the other things that I really appreciate is what you
did for Tituba with your piece. We're able to have a memorial
brick installed, Tituba's name on it at the House of the Seven
(14:51):
Gables, and I did that because her name is only It's not often
in memory. It's part of this juicy story,
and she was just a woman, an enslaved woman.
But I really enjoyed that you were able to not just have her
(15:14):
depicted as a character in your play, but that you talked about
who she was. Yeah, that was a big part of the
development process of me going back and forth of how much I
even wanted that. Just because by nature, if I am
a white male playwright, I don'tknow how much I necessarily have
to fully to say about this. But the absence of it whenever
it wasn't there just felt a little bit too much.
(15:35):
Just given again of how much of it is about the adaptation of
truth and about this lessons that we learned.
It did feel like an important part of just because, again,
going back to the Crucible and that being where so much of
people's knowledge they think they have comes with and how
much she's positioned as the instigator to far more of an
(15:56):
extent that she actually is. Just felt like something I
wanted to at least touch and be like, well, here's the actual,
at least as far as people can agree is the actual history.
Because obviously that's something that even today they
don't quite know because the records just aren't there.
But yeah, no, it felt very important to try to get the
actual history. That is often wrong.
But yes, I'm glad that was appreciated.
(16:18):
Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate the
references in there to the Crucible and the corrections
that you make to the Crucible. Basically, Abigail Williams was
11 or 12, and she wasn't sleeping with John Proctor, who
was actually in his 60s. So it's important to mention
(16:38):
those things, yeah. And it was trying again, because
the play went through so many iterations.
There was one version at some point in time that was much more
of, oh, we're going to parody the Crucible a little bit.
But then it just wasn't, it wasn't as like satisfying
because it was just like, oh, it's wrong again.
So I was just trying to find thethings that are so prevalent and
in people's minds and trying to at least be like, that's
(17:00):
actually not how it went down, just enough.
But actually, I kind of like that it doesn't really focus on
it too much and sort of acts as its own little piece of Salem on
stage. Yeah, absolutely it.
I don't. I didn't feel like I was
experiencing the same old thing at all.
It's totally new. Of all the adaptations we've
(17:22):
seen to the history. And that, I don't know.
It is really, really marvelous what you did with the story.
The, the witch and the wizard, The witch, the actual, the pop
culture witch and the wizard. What a brilliant element.
How did that make it into the story?
Yeah, so I loosely touched this earlier.
So originally the play was just fully about these two characters
(17:42):
and it named Xanatar and Bella Vera.
Their function in the play as itis right now is they have a much
smaller part than they used to. But it is for anyone who hasn't
seen it and read it. Yeah, there's throughout this
show, every once in a while, once we're in the church,
whenever finally all of the villagers of Salem, the village
and the town sort of find out. Whenever it's announced that
there's witches here and we're going to put them in there where
they're going to start trying toturn people, get it against them
(18:05):
and rile up the town. In walks a woman who is very
clearly a witch, and she's soon joined by someone who is very
clearly a wizard. And one of the original jokes of
the show that still maintains itis it's like there's witches in
Salem and then these two characters sort of just going
like, what? What?
No God that can't be. And so their function in the
show is just to be like, if it'sa very on the nose way of
(18:27):
showing that this wasn't about looking for witches, actual
witches, because in this versionof the story, there's two very
clear real witches and Wizards right there doing blatant
witches and wizard things. But, you know, we're after land
and other things, not that in Syria.
Originally, the play was very much about them and just
(18:47):
following them, experiencing thewitch trials and having a little
bit more of a presence in it. And eventually, the only time
this is an old, old draft, the story like the wizard finally
did get blamed, but it was because he accidentally stumbled
into learning the truth. And then I'd go, wow, this guy's
a wizard. And yeah, But as more and more
of the research, the more and more I read books as a good
(19:10):
playwright should when reading something in history, the more
and more I was interested in focusing on the actual story of
it. But because the original idea
was about this, and I thought itstill held such a good, Again,
going back to that, it's not about witches and Wizards.
It was such a good little juicy thing.
And it was an easy way to still have some good bits in it
because I am predominantly a comedy writer.
(19:32):
Yeah. Yeah, on that point, I've got to
say we've been talking about howmuch history there is in the
play. It's not at all overwhelming.
It doesn't even come up on whelming.
It's a nicely dosed throughout the story and presented
entertainingly so people are laughing while they're learning
it. It's awesome way to do it.
(19:55):
That was always the hope with it.
Yeah, it's always. I am very much as a writer.
I try to think of things as presented as more like a ride,
to whatever extent. There's ups and downs going on a
journey with me and everything that I write.
And I wanted to try to make sure, as much as this has
informative tidbits, that it's always presented in such a way
that you're not bored and you'reevening out at the theater.
(20:16):
When I got to the high school, some of the family were talking
about how long it was going to be and I was like really?
It's that long? Because and it was AI think
their production was almost 3 hours.
It was a long one, but it just went by because I know, I think
I know the story so well. I kind of knew what was up
around the bend, but I didn't. That's what is so enjoyable
(20:38):
about this, because there's lotsof surprises and the characters
are just so rich and they reallylike when you're thinking about
stories from history, these are the kinds of characters you want
to meet that have the real feelings and share their mind
(21:00):
and have these interactions. You really portrayed that.
OK, yeah, yeah, again, I sort ofcomes back to my style as a
writer. I So I have an improv background
and I did a lot of studying at the Upright Citizens Brigade
here. And there's the concept called
the game in a scene where it's you pick, you find like the
first weird or interesting thing, and then you hit that
(21:20):
over and over again and you examine that from as many sides
as you can of how to keep that interesting.
And so I tend to, whenever I write a character, I try to find
that one interesting thing and then explore it from all the
angles. And I having, again, real people
to at least loosely based that off, whether it's their
historical nature or the way they've been presented and other
(21:41):
media and things like that. That's how I tried to tackle
each of the characters in this Salem story by finding either
the one thing that we do know about them or the kids like some
of more of their actual like real life, like neuroticisms
that probably like Betty Paris, who's my reverend's daughter and
trying to do the modern day pop culture sensibility of.
Oh yeah, that there's a lot of pressure in trying to be that
(22:02):
perfect one. And oh, of course you would
probably be have a emotional andmental breakdown whenever being
asked to be a part of something like the accusations and
whatnot. Yeah.
And so I try to do that with every single character.
So I'm glad at least that they. Are.
Popping off on the stage still. Absolutely.
(22:22):
And the characters come to such great insights in the story as
well. There's one in there that really
stood out to me. That's a character talking about
how goody good makes her feel. She's like, goody good is always
asking me for something and I'm always saying no.
But then I feel guilty about saying no.
(22:42):
And we've had that conversation with a couple of the experts on
witch trials before. And it is a thing that people
feel guilty for not giving, and they end up, in turn, blaming
that person, you know, for even asking.
And so people got accused of witchcraft for exactly that
reason all over the world. So.
(23:05):
Yeah, it's it's, again, it's oneof those aspects of stuff that
that you can take that and put that on several different
societal groups nowadays and howthey are villainized or other by
whatever agenda that exists out there.
And so it's, again, it's just all we loop back and forth over
to these things. And it would have been the same
thing in the play. Its function is to be like,
yeah, this is how they're slowlyturning people into the idea of
(23:28):
like, oh, you get to blame somebody for your bad feelings
that isn't yourself. Isn't that great?
Isn't it cool that you don't have to deal with this on your
own side? And then of course, because part
of it was in doing all of that, while it's very much clear that
we're trying to show this, yeah,what this person by riling that
person up to in order to blame and ultimately kill these people
is bad. There was at least the trying to
(23:49):
have the slightest bit of like, if you were in that seat, could
you have been convinced as well?By the same way, if by Thomas
Putnam, saying these things out loud and bring it to you is like
at least trying to have some aspect where the actor can try
to play the convincing part, even though a good modern day
audience will probably look at him with judgement.
(24:11):
But yeah. Well, I think that's really key,
what you're pointing out. And again, we have been looking
at this on our podcast a lot that it's not just monsters that
do terrible things. It's all of us that are human.
Sometimes something just goes too far and it doesn't mean that
(24:33):
person was necessarily worse than it is a different type of
human. It's our type of human.
And you could definitely, as a audience member, I could
definitely put myself in the shoes of any of those
characters. I didn't like it.
I enjoyed the the teen girls perspective on what was
(24:55):
happening around them. Loved that.
But I could see where Putnam andParis, how they were buddying up
and what they're, what they weredoing there too.
I'm like, yeah, I can see that you.
Know in 1692, all of them were experiencing this like horrible
winter. They there was a war at their
doorstep. People are getting sick all the
time. There was this big political
(25:16):
division in the town. And so it was also trying to
find as many different ways to like this, not things that
ultimately did have so much to do with it.
But we don't think of it as alsobeing the things that are
happening, like, right now. And they're also causing all of
these divisions where people arefinding ways to other and get
mad at other people that it's all just there.
Yeah. It's it's that is the big part
(25:37):
why I kept wanting to write thisstory because of that, all that
just kept making itself seem so evident.
Yeah. We see so much, so many of those
things in our own society and around the world that 'cause
these problems. But still, everybody wants to
assign that one simple reason toexplain away, Salem, like the
(26:00):
ergot you touched on earlier. Or they'll say, oh, it was
encephalitis or it was just hysteria.
Everybody went hysterical and started pointing fingers at
everybody. But it's just people like us
getting off on the wrong track. Yeah.
I think people like a clean explanation, and sadly, the
(26:22):
world very rarely actually has aclean explanation for anything.
But we love to assign things that, yeah, I don't know, that
is just human nature. It's also against no one's other
than some stories do often timeshave villains.
Often times there's a lot of people that are just on the
outskirts of it, and it's what you do with the information
after the fact. As much as then, you know, a lot
(26:43):
of people back then who were Privy on the outside of this all
did come to their senses at somepoint.
It did feel a great sense of shame and I don't know, I guess
that's the part of it that's interesting.
That why we still keep coming back to it though, because not
everybody does learn their lessons.
Yeah, yeah. How did writing this story, how
has it impacted your new work orthe way you tackle your writing?
(27:07):
You know? Yeah.
So what part of it was just through pure from just a
technical standpoint of writing something for eight years and
having 8 to 10 probably different versions of how the
story was being told was just incredibly helpful for me as a
writer. So the more and more of like the
research and how to write something off of research was
something I hadn't really ever done before either.
(27:29):
And see, and it's definitely made me.
I want to I have to figure out what the subject is.
But through my work of this, I do want to tackle another
historical project and again, try to find something that is
maybe something we think we know, but we don't actually know
as much of. I have a very strong yearning to
experiencing that again, but that's that I am taking some
time before that because I don'tnecessarily know if I have
(27:50):
another six year, eight-year process in me.
But yeah. So it's certainly that journey
of it. I also, it was like one of the
first shows that I tried to put on back the city posts, like the
pandemic, which also just had its own whole series of lessons
because especially here in New York, the theater scene,
especially small plays like this, that we weren't on
Broadway. We're at this off Off Broadway
(28:11):
theatre. We had like 98 seats, something
like that. And that world still really
hasn't recovered in any way. And trying to figure out how to
get these stories in front of people is evolving process.
I was very happy with our run when we did it in the city.
We actually were able to sell quite well, which was shocking.
(28:31):
So they were just the practical lessons like that.
Yeah, I guess it's mostly that Ireally enjoyed it and I want to
do it again with something else.I think you're a role model for
other creators to have taken historical people, make this
beautiful fiction and then get that pop culture element in
(28:52):
there, so. Yeah, good.
My I tend to as a writer, I focus mostly on like genre
stories, things like this. So this was while it still has
very little lot of elements of that.
It is more of a yeah, just a a story a a real story and I'm
glad that comes across yeah, 'cause most of my other work my
the play that I most not for is this one called Puffs or 7
increasingly eventful years in acertain school of magic magic,
(29:13):
which is like a Rosencrantz and Gilden Stern are dead style like
Side Story about a certain boy wizard that a lot of people are
familiar with. And so that's the world that I
usually work in. And so this was a very fun thing
that I basically worked with at the same time, which is probably
why some of the more fantasticalelements seeped in just because
by nature, if I was living in a fantasy world most of the time.
(29:34):
And I think what I love about theater and writing plays,
because you're ultimately makingsomething for these actors to
inhabit. And so one of the reasons I love
writing Pups was because people get to put on wizard capes and
they get to live out that fantasy.
And then this is a completely other thing where you are
actually having you get to have the opportunity to, there's a
learning part of it. You're inhabiting a real person.
(29:55):
And This is why I love that it is now in, like, the hands of
high schools and that they get to have this opportunity that
is, well, it's similar and fun. There is this other element of
like, it's a challenge, I think,for them to get to step into
these types of roles. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Before we move on to talk about
what's next for you, I want to ask you first.
(30:18):
Is there anything about witches in Salem that you wanted to talk
about today that we haven't touched on yet?
I feel like we've mostly coveredeverything we went through all
the history of it. I'm very happy.
I think the one biggest thing with it, yeah.
So if anyone is interested in reading the script, any of the
multiple versions of it, it's available through a company
(30:39):
called Uproar Theatrics, uproartheatrics.com.
They have the scripts available for a free perusal there.
And especially if you're looking, you know, if you run a
theatre group or something like that.
Are you looking for a new play? That's a great place to look for
it. As mentioned, there's several
versions of it. There's one that's more for
adults, that's the exact versionthat we performed in New York.
(30:59):
There's another one that cuts Satan out of it and that's
specifically for high schools. There's another one that's like
a 45 minute version that's for play competitions and that one's
fascinating. So again we have there's the
Satan version where Satan is sort of the book end of the
story. There's one that's just this
teenage girl telling the story, and then there's another one
that fully removes her, and it'smore focuses entirely on the how
(31:21):
the witches interact with in thereal history of it.
If you're also just interested to see how many different ways
of play can be put out there, it's a fascinating take on that.
We're weirdly, the 10 year development process of it
benefited it. Yeah.
Something I guess I just find sointeresting about having worked
on this play for so long was a favorite quote of mine that I
(31:42):
was never able to refind. I guess I know I read it at some
point that I could never find itagain.
So who knows if I am actually making it up.
But there was a quote from Arthur Miller where at one point
he said that he had done so muchresearch that he could not
remember what he had made-up andwhat was true, which is where
some of like the Abigail stuff and everything comes from.
(32:03):
And if the whole time when I wasearly on in the process, I was
like, oh, that's silly. And then I got to last year, I
was like, I'm in the same boat. And I felt the need to try to
get that feeling into the show to some extent as well.
I just think that that's interesting.
I think it's interesting the waywe adapt history and you can't
help but be the sort of God for.And well, this is how I think it
(32:24):
happened. So here's how maybe it happened.
Yeah. And I hope that I think there's
many different ways to experience witches.
And I hope that people out therecan get at least some of.
This out of it, it enables us tolook at it in a comfortable way.
There's fear in the story, but I'm not looking at it fearfully.
(32:45):
I love that. Hopefully it gives people a
comfort level of taking a peek at the history, even though they
may not be so sure. Well, I'm not so sure about the
devil or these women or witches or magic.
You can still step into this creation and just look around.
There's so much in it. It's great to revisit it.
(33:08):
I loved going back and reading the script after seeing it.
I'm so glad. Great.
Yeah, that's, I guess that is just ultimately that is the hope
with it that anyone, no matter what, where you're coming from,
like whatever even background orbelieves there's some.
I think that there is something.I think it tries to just present
the story as it is. Obviously, I can't help but put
on some of my own personal beliefs within it, but I tried
(33:30):
to withhold from that as much aspossible so that I think many
people would be able to take from it what they want.
But no matter what, they're still like a baseline of truth
and reality in it. And I guess that's interesting.
It is. I think as humans we look for
the people to blame. But if we're getting blamed for
something, we try to pull in other people like, well, it's
(33:51):
all of us. So what does that mean when
we're looking at Salem? There was responsibility on a
lot of people for that, and that's comes out in the story.
Yeah, it was so great. And I think it's really
wonderful to help you give that creative license to those who
are going to put it on stage. How are they going to portray
(34:15):
the hangings? And I as a descendant was
nervous about that part. And it was high school level, of
course, but I they did it with dignity and it was really moving
how they did it. The way they chose to do it was
they just flashed a red light and then the woman that was
getting hanged just did this. They had like a gallows prop
(34:35):
that was beautiful. It was big and almost like
framing the stage, these gallows.
But then when they did that, those moments in the story, it
was very powerful. And again, even to that point
for anyone, we've talked a lot about how to play is funny and
entertaining. It is very much built so that
(34:56):
one of the reasons I tried to make it sort of this roller
coaster ride over. You're laughing a lot.
And then when you hit that pointof it, it was very purposeful.
Like, no, now we're going to like hit a wall.
And it's like it's no longer funny at this moment in time
because now all of these consequences, it actually caught
up to the people. And so that's where, OK, there
is full freedom because their comfort level is going to be
(35:17):
different no matter where peopleare coming from.
That sort of visual imagery. And I guess it can be powerful
in many different ways. So I'll obviously think it's the
horror of seeing the objects is something that was always
interests me. A red light and emotion will
also get it across. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the story of Salem is just
(35:40):
so interesting in itself that ityou didn't have to invent a lot.
You just went with the story that was already there, threw in
some comedic elements, emphasizesome things that were funny
about it, really stuck to it because it's so interesting.
Yeah. That's which is in Salem.
(36:01):
Your website is awesome. Look good.
And all of your work is a lot. There's so much to look at on
there. Tell us about what people will
find when they go to your website.
Www.mattcoxland.com It needs an update.
Let me tell you that. Maybe I will soon.
Yeah, upcoming. Right now, I have a like you can
(36:21):
give some of the information about other things I've worked
on in the past. The big one being the play
puffs, which a lot of high schools and regional theaters do
perform. So there's a good chance that
every once in a while there's a prediction happening near you.
You enjoy the story of a certainboy wizard and what to see it
from another perspective. I have another play that I wrote
Once Upon a time called Kapowiegogo, which was the sort
of big epic 5 hour long like Saturday morning cartoon anime,
(36:44):
fantasy, sci-fi, throwing everything in the wall.
Currently if you do find yourself in New York, I run a
like monthly ish show called Giant Sky Beam at the Second
City Theatre in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
That's where me and my writing partner and Stephen Stout, we
pick a different genre and we write a script very quickly and
(37:04):
rehearse it. We have one upcoming soon that's
like a sports movie. It's called The King of the
Ping, for the Love of the Pong. It's going to be very silly and
similar to that, sometime over the summer we're going to be
revamping one of those plays that we did.
It's called 2002. It's a story about high school
and time travel. And then be on the lookout with
one other big project I have coming up is a musical called
(37:26):
True Crime Frankenstein. It's written with a wonderful
artist named Eli Bolin that's anadaptation of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein, but by way of a true crime podcast.
And I'm has some similar elements to which is insane,
certainly. Actually, we can look after that
and you know what, those are allgoing to be on my website soon
because I have been a bad artistand not kept up with that.
(37:51):
Well, as it is, though, there's like when I website experiences
for users can be different things and you feel once you get
on there, you feel like, oh, I'mgoing to take some time to look
through this. What's what's this puffs and
what's the is it the egg scream on there?
Yeah, I I'm a sound designer as well for like my plays.
(38:13):
I do all like for witches. We offer an old high school
friend of mine named Brian Matolius does all the music for
the shows that I write. And then I'll make a sound file
for it. And that was one from Puffs.
Just me screaming into a microphone.
But I thought it was funny to put.
It on there. That's awesome yeah.
So updates will be great, but it's still a really great site
(38:35):
to check out to get A, to get a feel for your skills and talent
and yeah. Thank you so much.
That's very much. Yeah, yeah.
How can our audience support you?
Yeah, for the most part, it's ifyou find to see a production of
pups happening to you, go check it out.
You can follow me. I'm Coxy, Loxy, COXXYLOXXY on
(38:55):
Instagram. That's really the only social
media I vaguely keep up with andthat's where I do my most
updates of what's coming soon. We'll probably actually be doing
a crowd fund sort of Kickstartertype thing for a play that's
upcoming to mind soon. So if you keep an eye out on
either the website or my Instagram, I'll have information
about that probably in the coming months.
That is a way to directly support me.
(39:17):
Otherwise, yeah, if you're interested in Pups, you can rent
it. We have a film version of it
that we filmed when we were Off Broadway that's available
basically where you can rent or stream anything, YouTube,
Amazon, all the places. Yeah.
That'll is it. Also a way to directly support
the work, Yeah. This was awesome, wasn't it?
Well, we love discussing Salem alot.
(39:39):
Make sure you catch our other podcasts, The Thing About Salem
to hear more Salem. Have a great today and a
beautiful tomorrow.
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