What’s the first project you’d take on after retirement? If you’re Marcus Pendergrass, you
compose music for a world-renowned play. Pendergrass, who retired from Hampden-Sydney
College after 20 years of teaching math and computer science, has created a musical score for
The Crucible, the Waterworks Players’ first production of its new season.

In a recent interview, I asked him how he got started on such a project. “Sean [Dowse, The
Crucible’s director asked me,” Pendergrass said. Then, with a smile, I thought about it for five
seconds and said yes.” How familiar was he with the play? “I’m sure I read it in high school;
The Crucible has a large cultural footprint. So I started looking for music similar to what people
back then would have heard.”

Most of the music that the early Salem Puritans would have heard came from “psalters” such as
the Ainsworth Psalter (1612) or the Bay Psalm Book (1640). A psalter is a book of musical
settings of the Psalms. The Ainsworth Psalter is particularly important because it was the only
book of music brought to the New World by the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth Rock.
“The tunes in the Ainsworth Psalter are ancient,” Pendergrass told me, “dating from the 16th
century and before. They have a strange, antique beauty about them, but the rhythms and
harmonies are often surprising to our ears. This makes them interesting as source material for
the soundtrack to The Crucible, but at the same time, it made these tunes difficult for the early
Pilgrims to sing. So eventually psalters were replaced by hymn books, in which the tunes had
a more regular structure and were easier for congregations to sing. But during the time of the
Salem witch trials, psalters would have been the main source of music for the local churches.”
So, how has Pendergrass fitted his music to Arthur Miller’s long two-act play? “Well, I’ve
written theme music for each of the four major characters in the play: John Proctor, Abigail
Williams, Elizabeth Proctor, and Judge Danforth. These themes are woven into the fabric of the
soundtrack and appear and reappear as the action of the play unfolds. This gives the music a
unity and cohesiveness that’s important in a 3-hour play.”

“Danforth’s theme, derived from Psalm 1 in the Ainsworth Psalter, is harsh, militaristic. John
Proctor’s theme is derived from Psalm 25, but I’ve made it a bit hymnlike, in ¾ time and
harmonized to give it a darker feel. Elizabeth’s theme is derived from Psalm 18: beautiful, but
cold. And Abigail’s theme is an original tune. She’s beautiful and psychotic, pretty and
dangerous. There are wrong notes in it, by design.”

“And the endgame?” I asked. Pendergrass thought for a moment. “There’s something broken in
Salem, and I’ve created broken versions of the Psalters. The music tells the story: how the
forces of theocracy, combined with hysteria, win out. The result? A religious authoritarian
state.”

The Crucible opens on Friday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m. Other play dates are October 18, 24, and
25 at 7:30, with a Sunday matinee on October 19 at 2:00. For ticket information, consult the
Waterworks website: waterworksplayers.org.