When Cameron Humphrey saw “John Proctor is the Villain” on Broadway this July, he was not just enjoying the play — he was comparing it to his past work.

From scale and visuals to performances, there were a number of differences between the Broadway production and the production Humphrey acted in last year at SUNY Oswego. But there were also similarities.

“I would say we did a lot of the things at Oswego the same as Broadway,” Humphrey said. “And I think that that is thanks to Liz, and it really shows how brilliant Liz is.”

“Liz” is Elizabeth Dahmen, a theatre director from Hudson Valley who was brought in to help “John Proctor is the Villain” for SUNY Oswego Theatre in the fall 2024 semester.

In the year since that production ended, Dahmen, Humphrey and the rest of the cast and crew have had time to reflect on the play, its impact and their approach to it in comparison to the Broadway version, which opened in April and ended earlier this month.

“It was altogether a really, really cool experience,” Oswego actor Elliot Carrick said. Carrick specifically pointed to Dahmen and her handling of the show’s ensemble, of which Carrick was a member.

“Generally in ensemble, you’re working entirely as a supplemental device,” Carrick said. “She gave us the space to entirely create our own characters.”

Delilah Keyes, another part of the ensemble, similarly valued Dahmen’s process.

“It was just a great practice as an actor,” Keyes said.

Dahmen’s focus on the ensemble was very intentional. She comes from a background of devised theatre, an experimental form that emphasizes collaboration, improvisation and putting the actor first.

She wanted to use that approach with the ensemble of “John Proctor is the Villain” to immerse the audience in the play’s setting, an Appalachian high school in 2018.

“I really wanted a large cast,” Dahmen wrote in an email interview. “I wanted it to feel like you were in a real high school, with many eyes watching, and cliques and alliances marking out their territory.”

To that end, she encouraged improvisation and used games, activities and exercises to help the entire cast — but particularly the ensemble — build out their characters.

This “collaborative world-building,” as Dahmen calls it, was just one element of her directing that the cast found refreshingly unorthodox.

They were first exposed to Dahmen’s directing style during auditions, which were held jointly with “The Laramie Project,” SUNY Oswego’s other fall 2024 show. Cast members would go on to describe Dahmen’s audition process as “eccentric,” “vibes-based” and “very personal.”

That unique, personal approach would continue throughout rehearsals. For a scene of sexual assault between characters played by Humphrey and Ariana Palmer, Dahmen zeroed in on the actors’ comfort and familiarity with each other.

“I focus heavily on how my cast is responding to the material and on what the script is calling forth from them,” Dahmen stated.

One exercise involved Humphrey and Palmer crawling toward each while saying “I love you,” before lying down on the floor with Dahmen.

“We just started talking about life,” Humphrey said. “It made actually being intimate and having to do the scene not tough at all.”

This kind of bonding was present throughout the production and has had lasting impacts. The cast still maintains a group chat and contact with Dahmen, who has helped them in their post-“John Proctor is the Villain” endeavors.

“She actually helped me get into this program at Vassar, this theatre summer program,” Keyes said. “It built so many connections, I think, for all of us.”

The show built a strong connection for Dahmen as well — one with SUNY Oswego itself. In the spring 2026 semester, Dahmen will return to the campus to stage a performance in collaboration with Oswego Theatre and the Tyler Art Gallery.

“I’m thrilled to be able to share this work with the SUNY Oswego community and work with the talent here once again,” she stated.

However, for all of that bonding, the Oswego production was not without its difficulties. The cast’s initial reactions to the script were mixed, between the quality of the prose itself and the challenging nature of some of its more mature content.

Logistical issues arose late into rehearsals as well.

“I do remember the day of the blackout on campus,” actor Ladeycha Johnson wrote over email, in reference to a campus-wide power outage in November 2024. “We had to cancel a dress rehearsal due to the clothes not being able to be dried.”

In addition, lead actor Kamdyn Miller fell ill with mere days until the show’s premiere, requiring Carrick to briefly fill in for her.

Fortunately, rehearsals also included a morale boost with the announcement that “John Proctor is the Villain” would soon be coming to Broadway.

“It definitely, personally, for me, made me feel a lot stronger in the performances that I wanted to give,” actor Makayla Washock said.

Washock was not alone. The news inspired the entire cast to make the SUNY Oswego production one that demonstrated the show’s Broadway potential.

“It was a stamp of approval that this was quality prose, and a script worth our very best efforts,” Dahmen wrote.

Those efforts seem to have paid off. The Oswego production of “John Proctor is the Villain” would go on to be recognized at the 2025 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Region 2 conference.

When Humphrey saw the Broadway version this summer, one element stood out in comparison to Oswego.

“There is one thing for certain that we did better than Broadway, and that is the ensemble,” Humphrey said. “Broadway chose to exclude the ensemble, and I think that made for a little more of an emptier world. Our ensemble was so brilliant in creating our own world.”

In the eyes of Humphrey and much of the rest of the cast, “John Proctor is the Villain” demonstrated that, perhaps, SUNY Oswego and Broadway are not so far apart.

“I hope that it continues to grow a legacy on Broadway,” Johnson stated. “And maybe one day, I’ll be casted as Nell Shaw again.”