Jen Silverman’s Witch opens Quintessence Theatre’s 17th season, an inventive retelling of the 1621 Jacobean tragicomedy The Witch of Edmonton, running September 30 through October 25 at The Sedgwick Theater in Mt. Airy. Suli Holum stars as Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman cast out of her village after being labeled a witch, opposite Frank Jimenez as Scratch, a devil working the village door to door for souls.

Jen Silverman’s Witch Reworks a 400-Year-Old Village Story

Scratch’s pitch is simple: grant a neighbor’s darkest wish, take a soul in exchange, move to the next door. Elizabeth should be the easiest target in Edmonton, already stripped of everything the town could take from her, but she refuses every overture. That refusal, and what it costs both Elizabeth and Scratch, is what pulls the rest of the village into the story.

Silverman adapted the story from a 1621 collaboration between playwrights John Ford and Thomas Dekker, keeping the bones of the original while sharpening its edges for a modern audience. That combination, a four-century-old source text handled by a contemporary playwright with a genuinely modern sensibility, is what gives the production its real tension.

Jen Silverman’s Witch Brings Director Maura Krause Back to Philadelphia

Witch marks Maura Krause’s directorial debut at Quintessence and the first Philadelphia production since 2020. A University of Pennsylvania graduate, Krause previously served as Artistic Director of Orbiter 3, the city’s first producing playwrights’ collective and a Barrymore Award winner in its own right, and spent two years as Artistic Associate at Azuka Theatre before stepping away from directing in the region.

A five-year gap between regional directing credits is a long time in a city’s theater scene, and Witch marks a genuine return rather than a minor stopgap. Quintessence choosing a director stepping back into Philadelphia specifically for this show says something about how the theater views its own season opener.

Jen Silverman’s Witch Follows a Legit Broadway Résumé

Silverman’s Broadway credit, The Roommate, ran at the Booth Theatre, with additional work staged at Woolly Mammoth, MCC, and the Goodman. That range across major regional houses and a Broadway run is a genuinely rare combination for a playwright still actively writing for both stage and screen.

Silverman’s screen work includes writing credits on Netflix’s Tales of the City and Max’s Tokyo Vice, alongside the Oscar-qualifying short film Troy, which screened at more than 70 festivals including the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Three MacDowell fellowships and a Guggenheim fellowship round out a résumé that’s made Witch’s Quintessence run one of the more anticipated openings of the theater’s season.

Steven Rishard, Trevor William Fayle, Abdul Sesay, and Imani Lee Williams round out the cast, with Quintessence continuing a run of ambitious season openers that’s defined recent years at the Sedgwick. Tickets are available now through the theater’s box office.

A play built around what a soul is actually worth, staged in a season built around what a theater company chooses to open with, is the kind of pairing that doesn’t happen by accident. Silverman’s own reputation for finding dark comedy inside genuinely serious subject matter makes the fit even less coincidental.

Quintessence picked a story about refusing an easy deal to start a season, and that’s a solid premise to ponder before the curtain even goes up.

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Allan Lane

Philadelphia born and bred, Allan Lane is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of digital magazines. He launched his first publication, SportBikes Inc Magazine in 2010, followed by dosage MAGAZINE in 2019. Recently, Allan launched his third online publication, Club For Man. As a journalist, Allan covers fashion, lifestyle, culture, art, and motorcycles.

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