A personal and in-your-face performance can be expected as the Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts debuts “The Crucible” this weekend.

That’s by design, said show director Jenny McClintock. The HBAPA’s take on the classic Arthur Miller play about witch trials will be in the intimate studio theater, also known as the “black box,” on the campus of Huntington Beach High.

The stage is a thrust stage, so-named because it “thrusts” into the audience, which will be seated on three sides.

“The reason I did that is because of the themes of this piece,” said McClintock, the HBAPA acting director. “I want the audience to feel implicated and complicit in the message of this piece, which is that we are responsible for maintaining truth and not buying into mass hysteria, not letting past resentments build up and then justify bad behavior. I wanted the audience to really feel like they were in it.”

The three-hour play is a dramatized version of the Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. McClintock is using a double cast of more than 40 student actors for the show, which the group has been preparing for since September.

Huntington Beach High senior Kenny Hogue is one of the male leads who plays John Proctor, who gets into trouble after it’s revealed he had an affair with Abigail Williams. Hogue said he’s had fun flushing out a complex character.

“As humans, we are not perfect and we are not evil,” Hogue said. “We’re in the gray area. Why I’m excited for the show is that I’m usually considered a character actor, so I play a lot of roles like bad guys. Back in the day, character actors would play mobsters, but this role has finally given me the chance to play a dramatic, serious role. Usually I’m picked for comedic roles, so I’m very excited for this.”

Huntington Beach High senior Angelina Russo is one of three actresses who will play Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth. Also known as Goody, Elizabeth Proctor gets accused of witchcraft.

“I think this play definitely is applicable to life today,” Russo said. “Paranoia is still really prevalent in the world. You think about these different groups that form in society based on personal belief systems, and that’s demonstrated in the play. All kind of groups form and alienate others that don’t fit into that. Social media plays a big part, especially with teens.

“If you don’t fit the standards of beauty or the social norms, you’re put on the outs, in a way. I mean, it’s not as dire as being put on trial to be hanged, but it’s definitely still there.”

Cicily Thompson and Keri James play Williams, an orphan who works for the Proctors but eventually wants to get back at them.

Tituba, an enslaved woman from Barbados who is the first to be accused of witchcraft, is another important character in the play. Huntington Beach High sophomore Kiara Sims plays Tituba for all seven shows.

Sims said she worked with a coach to get the Barbados accent down.

“There’s a lot of layers to this character,” she said. “A lot of times I’m very scared for my life, and then at the end I kind of get to play more into what you would expect for a Jamaican character, I guess. I’m no longer being pressured, I just get to be myself, so that’s cool that I get to do both ends of the character.”

She agreed with her cast mates that Miller’s play, which was written as an allegory for the McCarthyism of the 1950s, has themes that are as relevant as they were when Miller wrote it seven decades ago.

“Abby is the leader of the girls group, and she says that Tituba was the one who [committed witchcraft], so they all are blaming Tituba,” Sims said. “I’ve honestly seen it happen multiple times. There’s a group of girls, and if one girl who’s the leader of the group says, ‘We don’t like her,’ then then whole group is like, ‘We don’t like her.’

HBAPA is presenting showings of “The Crucible” on Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 5 p.m. Tickets range from $15 to $25. For more information, visit hbapa.org.