How Gaten Matarazzo Inspired Sadie Sink to Go Back to Broadway

When asked why she’s currently on Broadway in John Proctor is the Villain, Sadie Sink responds with a cheeky, “Once a theatre kid, always a theatre kid.”

Sure, Sink may have spent the better part of the last decade as a cast member on Stranger Things, but she actually began her career as a standby, and then a replacement red-headed orphan, in Annie on Broadway (even doing a vlog for Playbill at the time). Then in 2022, Sink was trying to figure out what she would do when the Netflix series was over. She then noticed that her co-star on Stranger Things, Gaten Matarazzo, was spending a lot of time in New York doing theatre. “Gaten is such a musical theatre kid. And I’ve seen every show that he’s done. I saw Sweeney Todd, and he was so good in it,” enthuses Sink. “Gaten has really inspired me to get back into it.”

After so many years playing the same role, Sink wanted a challenge. Sure, she had fought supernatural monsters and did indie films like The Whale. But it was the stage that taught her that “performing was something that I really enjoyed and wanted to continue.” So after Stranger Things, Sink knew that theatre could provide the kind of rigor and growth that she was looking for in the next stage of her career.

“Being able to perform live in front of people, that was something that I knew would be a challenge, and one that I was ready to take—especially at this point in my life, ending a big chapter of being on a huge franchise television show. I kind of wanted to, like, go do something completely opposite,” she says.

Sink told her agent to send her theatre scripts. By coincidence, her agent worked at the same agency, WME, that represented playwright Kimberly Belflower, whose play John Proctor Is the Villain had received a well-reviewed run at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 2022. The script landed in Sink’s inbox, and she devoured it in one sitting. Sink’s manager then connected her to producers Sue Wagner and John Johnson, and the show’s journey to Broadway began from there. John Proctor Is the Villain opened April 14 at the Booth Theatre to rave reviews (watch Sink and playwright Kimberly Belflower discuss the new play in the video above with Playbill’s Jeffrey Vizcaíno).

Though Sink is returning to Broadway in John Proctor Is the Villain, the show marks playwright Kimberly Belflower’s Broadway debut. “That is such a testament to Sadie to Sue and John because, in my experience, a lot of theatres are afraid to take chances on new writers,” says Belflower. “But Sadie was like, ‘No, I don’t care that I don’t know who this writer is. I know what this play did to me, and I want to be in it.”

Indeed, while stars tend to enjoy doing Shakespeare or modern classics on the stage, it is rare for a celebrity to come to Broadway in an entirely new play—much less one by an untested playwright. But when Sink first read it, she was immediately struck by how authentically Belflower portrayed Gen Z-ers. John Proctor Is the Villain takes place at a rural Georgia high school in 2018, where a group of high schoolers (many of them teenage girls) are studying The Crucible in their English class. At the same time, a #MeToo scandal breaks out in their town, leading these girls to confront questions around feminism in their traditional religious hometown—and realizing that maybe the things they were taught aren’t things they agree with.

“Kimberly just captures my generation and our voices in such an authentic light, which is very rare to come across in film, TV, plays, what have you these days,” says Sink, adding that she was most touched by “how these girls are able to take that hope that they have and change the world around them, even if it’s just for a second.”

So it’s not all teen angst; Sink is quick to point out how funny the play is—the girls talk about some heavy topics, but they also discuss their love for Taylor Swift and Twilight. It’s another way Belflower’s teenage dialogue is spot-on: “You can’t tell a story about high school students without mentioning Taylor Swift,” says Sink, who’s also worked with the pop star (she says Swift is unaware of her mention in the play).

Though Sink plays an outcast, Shelby, what she loves about the character is her sense of humor. Shelby, like Max on Stranger Things, endures some traumatic events—but she’s also allowed moments of lightness.

“Max and Shelby are similar in the sense that there is definitely inner turmoil,” says Sink, who adds that Shelby is unlike any other character Sink’s played before because “she is also really funny and awkward and kind of embarrassing at times. But she owns it, she knows that that’s part of her charm… It also just makes what she’s really going through all the more heartbreaking once you realize what this mask is covering.”

The much-talked-about moment in John Proctor Is the Villain has been the show’s final moments (which we won’t spoil here). But it includes an interpretive dance performed by Shelby and her friend, Raelyn (played by an impressive Amalia Yoo). The backing track: Lorde’s “Green Light.” Why? You’ll have to watch the play to find out. You’d think Sink would’ve been nervous to dance in front of a Broadway audience, but she’s found it freeing—it reminds her of performing for her parents in their living room.

“It’s fun,” she enthuses. “And it’s such a form of expression and freedom and the bravery that these girls have to do it in front of their entire class and make such a statement with it…I was so excited about that. Every night, it feels really cathartic. Having to bottle up so many emotions through most of the play and then just kind of letting it all out in such a physical way at the end, it’s a huge release.”

John Proctor Is the Villain has helped Sink release her own fears. Sink remembers doing Annie at 10 years old and while it was fun, she also remembered being terrified at messing up. But now, performing in front of 750 people every night has helped her let go of that baggage. “Letting go of the idea that I have to have everything figured out at this point has been super good for me and my former theatre kid brain, where everything has to be exactly perfect every single time you do it.” Sink then adds, passionately, “I’ve got exactly what I needed out of [this experience] already…I’m also feeling closer to myself as an actor.”

At the same time as Sink is acting in John Proctor Is the Villain, there are posters of her all over New York City in another new project: the movie musical O’Dessa, where she’s a guitar-playing balladeer looking to heal a post-apocalyptic world through song. Sink did her own singing in the film, showcasing her vocal chops publicly for the first time since Annie. Now that Sink’s done a play on Broadway, is a musical next?

Sink answers with a very firm and fast no. “That vocal technique and stamina, I don’t think I’m ready to take that on,” she says. For the moment, she’s enjoying dancing onstage without the singing, adding with a giggle, “We’ll have to teach the dance at some point. People can come with the dance prepared.”

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Photos: Sadie Sink, Gabriel Ebert, Molly Griggs, More in John Proctor is the Villain