How Lorde’s “Green Light” Became the Heartbeat of John Proctor Is the Villain

23 June 2025

Lorde. Credit: Duncan Barnes

In the shadow of feminist awakening and #MeToo reckoning, playwright Kimberly Belflower saw a powerful conduit to dramatize teenage truth, Lorde's 2017 hit “Green Light.” The Broadway sensation John Proctor Is the Villain blends Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with pop‑culture pulse and director Belflower knew instinctively that the play’s emotional climax depended on the song’s raw sentiment.

Belflower’s insistence on including “Green Light” almost became non‑negotiable. She waited on contracts, paused productions, and finally penned a heartfelt letter to Lorde explaining how the song encapsulated the play’s catharsis. When Lorde granted her blessing, Belflower confessed she’d have walked away without it .

The play premiered in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and quickly became a touchstone in more than 100 college productions, a testament to its resonance among young audiences. Its Broadway run, directed by Danya Taymor and starring Stranger Things alum Sadie Sink as Shelby, opened in April and earned seven Tony nominations.

At its core, the narrative follows a group of teenage honors students in a rural Georgia high school circa 2018. While grappling with a #MeToo scandal on campus, they are assigned The Crucible in English class, a layered metaphor for hysteria, abuse, and power. Shelby, the young protagonist, turns to pop culture as a reference point, proclaiming John Proctor as the villain an assertion that flips Arthur Miller’s narrative and forces the students to reexamine history through a contemporary feminist prism.

Throughout the show, modern pop songs are deployed like emotional punctuation Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey but it is Lorde’s beat‑driven anthem “Green Light” that delivers the final emotional crescendo. The moment provides release and reclamation. It’s why Belflower saw no compromise the song's urgency mirrors Shelby's journey from silent rage to vocal empowerment.

In an interview, Belflower recalled thinking “It’s crazy, because it really feels like John Proctor is the villain.” That phrase sparked the idea for the play a modern female‑centered reinterpretation where teenage voices wield moral clarity.

Sadie Sink describes the play as a "love letter to girlhood" a story about young women forging solidarity and reclaiming voice. She reminisced on how Lorde’s songs, especially that banger “Green Light,” had shaped her adolescence, reinforcing why the song's presence feels so visceral.

Critics have applauded the play’s seamless weaving of literary canon, contemporary scandals, and pop‑music lyricism. The New York Times praised Belflower for “smartly” combining high school comedy, feminism, and The Crucible. Variety described the feminist reinterpretation as “demonstrating the power of feminine solidarity and rage”

The production’s staging is simple but potent a single classroom set bathed in pulses of music between scenes. Music becomes the transition, pushing momentum and emotional pacing rather than elaborate scene changes .

“Green Light” itself is a complex earworm, Lorde wrote it in 2017 as a dance‑pop anthem about heartbreak and release, climbing charts worldwide and earning critical praise for its emotional sweep. Its vibrant energy and lyrical declaration “I’m waiting for it” mirror Shelby’s own emergence from oppression into clarity.

Beyond its narrative utility, the song underscores the broader power of music to give language to emotional transformation. As one theater guide observes, music can both soothe and magnify raw feelings in this play it amplifies teen voices confronting abuse and hypocrisy.

The impact has been measurable the Broadway run has been extended twice, first to July and then through August, as demand soared. It’s rare to see a theatrical piece so tightly aligned with an album track yet Belflower’s gamble succeeded, proving popular culture can energize classical themes.

In merging The Crucible with pop melodies, John Proctor Is the Villain becomes a resonant cultural artifact, a dramatic journey shaped by teenage fury and feminist re‑reading. At the centre, “Green Light” serves not just as score but as emotional engine, a plea for liberation, a signal to go forward, even in the wake of trauma.

As audiences leave the theater, the song lingers, echoing not just Shelby’s arc but the lived experience of a generation ready to challenge narratives written by others. It is a theatrical landmark born from literary reflection and musical resonance, a green light leading toward cultural illumination.