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One of the most musical shows on Broadway right now isn’t, in fact, a musical. Pop music has a tangible presence in, and is intrinsic to the fabric of, Kimberly Belflower’s play John Proctor Is the Villain. The story follows a group of girls from small-town Georgia who, amid the #MeToo era, are reading Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and starting to doubt that the titular protagonist is as morally upstanding as he’s often portrayed to be — just as a classmate and friend (played by Stranger Things star, and now Tony nominee, Sadie Sink) returns to town after a much gossiped-about absence. Concurrently, they decide to form a feminism club in an attempt to learn more about a subject the adults around them don’t seem to love addressing head-on. And from the bop-filled pre-show playlist (constructed meticulously by sound designer and composer Palmer Hefferan) to Hefferan’s original music woven throughout to the references to seminal female pop singer/songwriters like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Selena Gomez and Lorde written into (and crucial to) the plot, the pop music the girls love might as well be another character in the play.

“There’s something about music that is so connective — there’s just this language there that everyone understands,” says actor Fina Strazza, a Tony nominee for her portrayal of passionate overachiever and club founder Beth. “Even if you don’t know the song we’re referencing, you can see what it’s about and what it means to them.”

Chief among those songs is Lorde’s “Green Light,” which is referenced throughout the play before finally being played at its most cathartic moment (no further spoilers here!). Belflower — who calls it “a perfect song” — never considered any other in its place, which made its somewhat complex journey to approval especially anxiety-inducing. Songs are usually cleared off-Broadway on a production-by-production basis, but once John Proctor moved into wider publication and was clearly headed for Broadway, “We were like, ‘OK, we need to clear this song, like, forever,’” she explains, which entailed approaching Lorde’s publisher, UMPG. Belflower wrote an impassioned letter to Lorde, asking that it be passed to her personally — only to get a “no” as the first response from her team.

Sadie Sink and Amalia Yoo onstage.

Julieta Cervantes

“I had, like, a panic attack in the Whole Foods parking lot when my agent called to tell me,” she recalls now with a laugh. But two weeks later, a “yes” came through from the artist herself, saying she loved the letter (and that the initial “no” had just been due to a miscommunication between teams; while Lorde hasn’t seen the show yet, Belflower is hopeful that will change whenever she’s next in the city).

John Proctor Is the Villain — at the Booth Theater through Aug. 31 — is now the most Tony-nominated play on Broadway currently, with seven nods. In advance of the awards ceremony on Sunday (June 8), Belflower, Hefferan and Strazza spoke to Billboard about a few of its most prominent music moments and how they came to be.

Dayna Taymor and Kimberly Belflower on the first day of rehearsals for “John Proctor is the Villain.”

Jenny Anderson

Selena Gomez, “Bad Liar”