The Crucible is a play by the American playwright Arthur Miller, who wrote this play in 1953. World War II had ended in 1945 and in the years following Americans were becoming increasingly concerned that their society would be infiltrated by communists. Thus, it is against the backdrop of the so-called "Red Scare" in the United States that Miller crafts his play about an earlier time in American history when people were also being recklessly accused of crime, namely the famous Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

Thus, Miller's play takes place in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, which is located northeast of Boston, near the Atlantic coast.

The action of the play begins in a bedroom at the house of a certain Reverend Samuel Parris.

In the second act of the play, the action opens at a Meeting House in Salem, where an inquiry is being held about the alleged involvement of certain women in witchcraft.

In Act II, scene 3, Miller stages the action at a jail cell in Salem.