Audiences attending Quantum Theatre's production of "The Crucible" may note an air of the familiar, an unusual feeling to get from this innovative company. And, indeed, this is a first for Quantum.

	Stephen Kancianic Hugo Armstrong is John Proctor, with Robin Walsh as Elizabeth Proctor, in Quantum Theatre's "The Crucible" at Mellon Park. Click photo for larger image. 'The Crucible' Where: Quantum Theatre at Mellon Park, corner of Fifth and Shady avenues, Shadyside. When: Thursday through Aug. 20. Wed.-Sun. 8 p.m. Tickets: $24-$27. 412-394-3353.

Returning to the site of last year's "Dark of the Moon," the Rose Garden at Mellon Park, Quantum brings back that production's director, Rodger Henderson, and even Tony Ferrieri's woodsy set.

It was similarities between the two plays' tones and themes that sparked the initial idea to mount "The Crucible," the germ of which was already bubbling before "Dark of the Moon" even opened.

But a sense of the familiar has always haunted "The Crucible," and that's partly the point of the play. When Arthur Miller premiered the play in 1953, the country was in the midst of a fever of anti-communism, whipped into a frenzy by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The parallels to the world of "The Crucible," the late-17th-century Salem witch trials, were obvious and disturbing.

Although the Cold War as we knew it then has ended, that familiar feeling generated by "The Crucible" continues. Why? Because we've never found ourselves free of violence against certain groups of people. The groups may change over time, but the hate -- the fear -- that seems to continue incessantly.

Photographer Lynn Johnson attributes lack of awareness. "There's so much ignorance about other kinds of people," she says from her hotel in San Francisco, where she's currently on assignment with National Geographic. "A hate crime can occur anywhere."

Johnson's photographs of sites where hate crimes have occurred are on display, large panels that form an open-air tent, on the lawn in front of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, adjacent to the Rose Garden. Audiences can walk through before or after the production, and there are even blank spaces for people to write their own thoughts after viewing the exhibit, which is part of a trio of installations that includes the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Hugo Armstrong, who plays John Proctor, recognizes the current of hate that pervades society as well. He grew up with a unique understanding of it. Born of parents Armstrong describes as motivated by a hippie philosophy, he never actually knew his father. His parents met in California, but his mother followed his father home to northern Ireland, where his father's dream was to build a school for both Protestant and Catholic children, "so they wouldn't grow up hating each other." The school still exists, but, shortly after his parents returned from their honeymoon, Armstrong's father was shot and killed. "By what faction doesn't even matter," he says. "They were both targeting him."

Now, besides acting, Armstrong teaches kindergarten in Los Angeles, where he's been living for the past five years. He sees all the time that hate is learned, not innate. "A human isn't born to hate a specific quality of another human being," he says. "Who we are taught to hate changes. Right now, we're being clearly instructed to hate another kind of people on the planet." It's the same kind of hysteria, Armstrong points out, that fueled the Salem witch trials.

But Armstrong is also careful to make note that there's not only one interpretation of "The Crucible." Like all great art, it speaks to everyone differently and he says that Henderson, as director, is wonderful about allowing each person his or her own reading.

Armstrong previously worked with Henderson, who was one of his instructors at California Institute of the Arts where Henderson also taught Quantum artistic director, Karla Boos. Armstrong first worked with Quantum in another Henderson-directed production, "Hapgood" in 1998.

Johnson, who's from Pittsburgh, first met Boos in 2004, when she photographed Quantum's "When the World Was Green" at the Mattress Factory. They talked about working together but hadn't found the right project.

It's a lucky coincidence that Johnson's photographs are on display at the same time as "The Crucible." It's a way of expanding the dialogue. "People appreciate engaging around a meaningful subject even if it's uncomfortable," Johnson says.

She refers to her work and Boos' as activist art and muses about its impact. Johnson has gone back to the exhibit to read what people have written on the walls and keeps a journal of the comments. She hopes, too, to participate in a post-show discussion with Quantum's audience. She points toward a tendency for people to want to keep the power of artistic work contained, to not have it enter into everyday life. But that's not always the case. As one visitor to the exhibit wrote, "Silence does not protect you."

"A stage will be set," says Johnson, "in more ways than one."