Special Events and News

News/Releases for 2020-2024

(Link to Archive for past years)

amtheatre
The Arthur Miller Theatre at the University of Michigan
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2025

  • Kimberly Belflower’s entertaining and insightful John Proctor Is the Villain will be getting a Broadway production, directed by Danya Taymor, starring Sadie Sink (Stranger Things/The Whale). Performances will begin March 20, 2025, at the Booth Theatre, NYC. Opening night will be April 14. Visit the website for bookings and more information.
  • The well-reviewed production of Salesman in China from the Stratford Festival will be revived in January in Ottawa: 16-25 Jan. at Babs Asper Theatre, National Arts Center, 1 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Canada. A reprisal of last year’s Stratford Festival production. Call 1 844 985-2787 (ARTS) or check the website for more information.

    Adrian Pang 彭耀順 as Ying Ruocheng (left) and Tom McCamus as Arthur Miller in Salesman in China. Stratford Festival 2024.

2024

  • Oakton College in Illinois is having a one-hour virtual discussion from 11am-noon on Tuesday 29 Oct. of Miller and Judaism, with April VeVea, sponsored by the college’s Jewish Studies, English, and Great Books departments. For more information check the website.

    Panels at the 14th International Arthur Miller Society Conference
  • A conference based around Death of a Salesman at 75, took place on October 19, 2024, sponsored by the Arthur Miller Society and the Arthur Miller Studio Project at The Minor Memorial Library, Roxbury, Connecticut. This Fourteenth International Arthur Miller Conference celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Broadway premiere of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece and featured an international panel, teaching panel, student panel, all based around Salesman, several readings and other presentations, and a key note address on “Why Arthur Miller is the Best American Playwright and Death of a Salesman His Best Play.”

    Mrs. Loman is Leaving
  • Mrs. Loman is Leaving by Katie Forgette will premier 12-27 Oct. in the Allen Theatre by A Contemporary Theatre (ACT), 700 Union Street, Seattle, WA. Directed by Julie Beckman with R. Hamilton Wright (Bob—and Forgette’s husband), Alexandra Tavares, Janelle Jordan, Shaunyce Omar and Nathaniel Tenenbaum. Set design by Andrea Bryn Bush. Abackstage comedy set on opening night of the fictional Teacup Theatre’s production of Death of a Salesman at an historic venue in New York. The protagonist, Joanne is set to perform as Linda Loman, returning to the stage after a multi-year hiatus while raising her family. George is the aging thespian in Willy’s role, and his increasing disorientation in the face of a comeback performance forces Joanne to hold the show together. Call 206.292.7676 or check the website for more information.

    Julia May Jonas

    A Woman Among Women
  • A Woman Among Women 15 Oct. -3 Nov. is one of five plays in All Long True American Stories, an epic play-cycle in which Julia May Jonas reimagines canonical American male-experience plays for other people (mostly women). Developed with director/producer Sarah Hughes (among others) and consisting of five new full-length plays responding to All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Long Days’ Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Zoo Story by Edward Albee, American Buffalo by David Mamet and True West by Sam Shepard. Presented at The Bushwick Starr & New Georges, 419 Eldert Street, Brooklyn, NY. Directed by Sarah Hughes, with. Set design by Brittany Vasta. Check the website for more information.
  • Concord Traveling Players, an elderly acting group who visit retirement homes, assisted living facilities, and other venues in the MetroWest (MA) area are working on a special production for Concord250 (a year-long event taking place in Concord, MA to celebrate its 250 anniversary). This might include Miller’s “Grandpa and the Statue” which Alec Walker Anne Fortier recently performed at the Framingham and Littleton Councils on Aging

Concord Traveling Players
  • Some Like it Marilyn 7-24 August at Mill Theatre, 3.3/1 Dairy Rd, Fyshwick, ACT, Australia, is an evolving cabaret stage show by Lexi Sekuless about Marilyn Monroe’s life on the screen. Originally a one-woman enterprise, she has now expanded it with actors, Helen Macfarlane, Mark Lee and Timmy Sekuless who will variously play Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, Billy Wilder, husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, and lover Yves Montand. She notes that “The play is “not a biographic, but a film-o-graphic look,” so it’s not focusing on all the personal scandals in Monroe’s candle-in-the-wind life.” Audiences can expect excursions into movies such as Some Like it Hot, How to Marry a Millionaire, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend and her last film, The Misfits. There’s even a bit from After the Fall! Check the Mill Theatre website for tickets and more information.

Cast for Here in America
  • Here in America  14 Sept.-19 Oct is a new play by David Edgar to be premiered at Orange Tree Theatre, 1 Clarence Street, Richmond, Surrey, UK. James Dacre directs Michael Aloni as Art (Arthur Miller), Jasmine Blackborow as Miss Bauer (Marilyn Monroe), Faye Castelow as Day (Molly Kazan) and Shaun Evans as Gadg (Elia Kazan). Set design by design is by Simon Kenny. Set in 1952 Hollywood, the play imagines a confrontation between director Elia Kazan and playwright Arthur Miller. Call 020 8940 3633 or check the website for more information. The production will be available for a short time (22-25 Oct.) on live stream: https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/here-in-america-ot-on-screen/ Unsure if this is accessible outside of the UK; they say– Watch online any time between 7.30pm BST on 22 Oct 2024 and 11.59pm BST on 25 Oct. Choose any date below to book tickets to watch from home. As this OT On Screen production will be enjoyed from outside the theatre, we ask people to pay what they’re happy to give, starting from £15.

Salesman in China

At Stratford Festival

Adrian Pang

Tom McCamus and Jo Lim
  • Salesman in China 3 Aug.-26 Oct. with opening on 23 Aug. at Stratford Festival, in the Avon Theatre, 99 Downie Street, Stratford, ON. A world premier written by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy (Suggested by the Memoirs of Arthur Miller and Ying Ruocheng). Chinese Translations by Fang Zhang. Directed by Jovanni Sy, with Tom McCamus (as Miller), Adrian Pang (as Ying Ruocheng), Jo Chim (as Wu Shiliang), and Sarah Orenstein (as Inge Morath). Set design by Joanna Yu. Presented in both English and Mandarin. Several talks have been arranged around this premier. Call 1 800 567 1600 or 519.273.1600 or check the website for more information. YouTube teaser introduction to the play.
  • Playwright Matt Cox (of Puffs fame), has written a parody of the Salem Witch Trials and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible called: Witches!? In Salem?!  It premiered earlier this year Off-Broadway at HERE Arts Center and has been acquired by Uproar Theatrics for licensing: now available in both full-length and high school editions. The high school edition of the play will premiere with a staged reading at this year’s International Thespian Festival in June [https://itf.schooltheatre.org/main-stage.cfm]. Attending thespian troupes are encouraged to submit applications to debut the comedy by May 20. One selected troupe will workshop the piece with Cox prior to the performance, which will feature Cox himself reading stage directions.

    Witches Can’t be Burned by Silva Semerciyan
  • Abigail by Sarah Tuft. On April 10th at Centenary Stage as part of their Women Playwrights Series. In the Kutz Theatre at the Lackland Performing Arts Center, 715 Grand Ave., Hackettstown, NJ. What happens when at out-of-town tryout of The Crucible – helmed by a once legendary director making his comeback and funded by his renowned actress wife – casts an arrogant veteran theatre actor opposite a beauty influencer with absolutely no experience! A lot!! In 2024, the search for truth in the role of Abigail Williams puts Arthur Miller’s classic on trial. Call 908-979-0900 or check the website for more information.
  • Witches Can’t Be Burned 26-27 March by Silva Semerciyan. Presented by County Limerick Youth Theatre (COLYT) at Lime Tree Theatre,  Belltable Arts Hub, Limerick County, Ireland. Directed by Elliemae Barrie & Jassmine Walsh. Call 061953400 or check the website for more information. Another play inspired by The Crucible! Plot: St. Paul’s has won the Playfest competition three years in a row by selecting recognized classics and producing them just as the masters intended. It’s a tried and trusted formula. With straight-A student and drama nerd Anuka cast as Abigail Williams in The Crucible, the school seems on course for a record-breaking triumph. What could possibly go wrong? But as rehearsals gain momentum, Anuka has an epiphany and starts to question the text. The scene is set for a confrontation of epic proportions as Anuka seeks to break with tradition before tradition breaks her, and all young women like her, and reality begins to take on the ominous hue of Arthur Miller’s fictionalized Salem.

    Good John Proctor
  • The Good John Proctor by 10-27 January by Talene Monahon at Jermyn Street Theatre in London (UK). Directed by Anna Ryder with Anna Fordham, Sabrina Wu, Amber Sylvia Edwards, and Lydia Larson. Set design by Natalie Johnson. Check here for info and tickets.

2023

  • Bungalow 21 by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (based on an idea by Benjamin Castaldi)  14 Sept.-17 Dec. at the Théâtre de la Madeleine, 19 Rue de Surène, 75008 Paris, France. The play reenacts the famous meeting of the Monroe-Miller and Signoret-Montand couples, in LA in the 1960s, when the couples were staying in adjacent bungalows at Beverly Hills Hotel during the filming of The Billionaire. Directed by Jérémie Lippmann, assisted by Sarah Gellé, with real-life sisters Mathilde Seignier (Simone Signoret) and Emmanuelle Seignier (Marilyn Monroe), brought together for the first time in the theater, as well as Michael Cohen (Yves Montand), Vincent Winterhalter (Miller), Clément Moreau, and Benjamin Jaouen. Set design by Emmanuelle Favre et Anais Favre. Call +33 1 86 47 23 71 or check the website for more information.
  • The Miller Society is sponsoring an Arthur Miller Birthday Celebration on Saturday, October 14 at 2 pm in the Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury, Connecticut. The program will focus on “False Confession and Wrongful Conviction” as it relates to Miller’s involvement in the Peter Reilly case. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of his arrest, and there is great interest today in the issue of wrongful conviction. Hopefully, there will be a discussion panel that includes some of the principals in the case. This event shows how our society focusses on not only Miller’s dramatic work, but also his political and social engagement. We will release more details soon. This will be the first official program related to the eventual full programming when Miller’s writing studio is placed on the library site. For those of you unable to attend this Saturday’s Miller event, here is the link for the livestream which was recorded if you still want to watch: https://www.youtube.com/live/5rWhYD-xCrk?si=LTZzTS54W1K5j41Y
  • Note one of the new exhibits at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin is Words into Worlds: Creating Place in the Theater. The success of a live theater production relies heavily on the communication between the playwright and their scenic designer, a concept demonstrated by various set models at the Harry Ransom Center. The “Words into Worlds” exhibit showcases the figurative worlds of playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller brought to life by artists such as Jo Mielziner and Boris Aronson. The free exhibition came to campus on Aug. 26 and will remain on display until Feb. 4 of next year, revealing the importance of thoughtful collaboration.

    Boris Aronson’s set design for Incident at Vichy
  • The Arthur Miller Studio Project is entering an exciting new phase with a public awareness campaign that includes active fundraising. On Wednesday April 26, the reporter Robert Moses ran a lengthy feature about the studio on Good Day, New York, which aired on Fox’s New York affiliate (click here to watch). It tells us about the studio, its importance in Miller’s life, and the efforts to locate it on the property of the Roxbury Library. Check out more details and information at the Arthur Miller Studio website. You can also access donation information on the GoFundMe page (June 2024 shows us nearly half way to the goal), and other information.
  • Trinity Rep at 21 Washington Street in Providence, RI are running Talene Monohan’s The Good John Proctor September 7 – 15 / September 28 – November 12 and Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem September 21 – November 10 in rotating rep this coming season. Call (401) 351-4242 or check their website for more information.

    Bad Play by Big Tobacco
  • At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, you can checkout Bad Play a mash-up of classics such as Death of a Salesman, Our Town, and A Streetcar Named Desire being performed there by the LA sketch comedy group Big Tobacco (Brad Beideman, Brian Fitzgerald, Lyndsey Kempf, and Eli Lutsky). Pulling all the best tricks of the trade from Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder and William Inge, and throwing them in a Vitamix with a healthy dose of irreverence, they created Bad Play, an off-the-wall hour of high tragedy and low parody. It’s a loving tribute to the great playwrights of the mid-20th century, taking their groundbreaking work and taking the absolute piss out of it. Playing August 3 – 28 at 19.05 (for 55 mins) in THE SPACE @ SURGEONS HALL.

    Quarantine
  • Quarantine 19 Aug. (by Kaberi Basu, based on A View from the Bridge) for Prachyo Theatre, at Academy of Fine Arts, 2 Cathedral Road, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. [Other possible performances in Oct.]. Directed by Buddhadeb Das, with Debesh Roychowdhury, Biplab Bandyopadhyay, Chaiti Ghoshal, Suparna Das, Somdutta Ghosh, Karna and Subrata. Lighting design by Soumen Chakraborty. Call +91 98755 60868 or check the website for more information.

    Salesman 之死  (Zhī sǐ/Death)

  • Salesman 之死  (Zhī sǐ/Death) by Yangtze Repertory Theater, in association with Gung Ho Projects, is a bilingual new play inspired by the true story of Arthur Miller directing Death of a Salesman in China. Having begun in 2018 as a workshop production, written by Jeremy Tiang and directed and developed by Michael Leibenluft, the play was originally scheduled for March/April 2020 by Target Margin theatre but had to be cancelled due to COVID. Featuring Sandia Ang, Sonnie Brown, Claire Hsu, Julia Gu, Lydia Jialu Li, and Jo Mei, with set design by Chika Shimizu. Now, the play will run 10-28 October at the Connelly Theater (220 E 4th St, Manhattan) with the official opening set for Monday, October 16. Salesman 之死  centers on Shen Huihui, a young university professor, who is summoned to the Beijing People’s Art Theatre for a special task: to interpret for Arthur Miller, who will soon arrive to direct his play Death of a Salesman – in Mandarin. Meanwhile, the Chinese ensemble, newly out of the Cultural Revolution, have never met “a salesman.” Will they be able to find common ground? Mostly based on true events, Salesman 之死  is a multilingual tale of cultural confusion, impossible translation, and unexpected encounters amid the chaos of theater making. Call (646) 343-1584 or check the website for more information.
  • In its seventh season, Riverdale (on CW) is airing its latest episode (#13) on June 28th 2023 titled The Crucible, loosely based on Miller’s play, as one of the gang’s favorite HS teachers gets accused of being a communist and the town hysteria that follows as they try to defend her!
  • “Muses & Self: Photographs by Allen Ginsberg” at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles 10 Aug.-23 Sept. is of Allen Ginsberg’s Photographs alongside poems generated by an A.I. trained on those same images, one of which includes Miller from 1985 taken in a Copenhagen elevator! Check the website for more information.
  • Who Killed Marilyn? by Sharleen Cooper Cohen, will have two more industry readings sponsored by KGM on March 10th at 11am and 2.30. Directed by Dick Scanlan with Rebecca Faulkenberry (replacing Elizabeth Stanley as Marilyn), and the rest of the cast all doubling roles, includes Victor Almanzar, Erich Bergen, Joe Carroll, Edward James Hyland, Dale Soules, Matthew James Thomas, and Charlie Hofheimer as Arthur Miller/Sam “Moomey” Giancanna. Check here for tickets.
  • Death of a Salesman: A New Play on 21 and 28 Feb., and 4 March at Under St Marks, on St. Marks Place, East Village, NYC. A play about death, sales, men, but most importantly, it is 100 percent brand new baby (Sunglasses Emoji). Watch in awe as the nation’s two brightest entrepreneurs hustle, grind, backstab, and sacrifice everything they have to bring their vision to life (the vision is eco-friendly tennis balls). This is one of 25 plays and pieces in the seventeenth annual FRIGID Fringe Festival that are also being simulcast – performed in person (on stage at either Under St. Marks or Kraine’s Theater) and simultaneously streamed online. Check here for more information, how to stream, and tickets for streaming or in person.
  • The 73rd Berlin International Film Festival opened on 16 February, 2023 with a screening of She Came to Me, the latest from Rebecca Miller. Billed as a romantic comedy of a different sort, Miller both wrote and directed. It stars Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei, Joanna Kulig, Brian d’Arcy James, and Anne Hathaway. Set in New York City, it focuses on a composer named Steven Lauddem, played by Dinklage, who finds himself creatively stuck and incapable of writing the score for what is supposed to be his comeback opera. When his wife, Patricia, played by Hathaway, suggests that he set off in search of inspiration, Steven will find much more than he had hoped or imagined.
  • The Good John Proctor 11 March-1 April by Talene Monahon by Bedlam, in The Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th Street, New York, NY. Directed by Caitlin Sullivan, with Tavi Gevinson, Brittany K. Allen, and Susannah Perkins. Set design by Cate McCrea. Gevinson previously starred in the 2016 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible about the same event as Mary Warren, this time round she’ll play Abigail Williams. The play offers a new look at the lead up to the Salem Witch Trials focusing on the inner lives of the girls involved. Call 1-833-4BEDLAM or check the website for more information. World premier.
  • “Arthur Miller: American Witness” a Book Talk with John Lahr and John Guare took place on Tues., 21 Feb., 2023 at 12:30 PM at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in the Edmond J. Safra Plaza, at 36 Battery Place, New York, NY. In his new book distinguished theater critic John Lahr brings a unique perspective to the life of Arthur Miller, the playwright who almost singlehandedly brought twentieth-century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication. Organized around the fault lines of Miller’s life and concentrating largely on his most prolific decades of the 1940s through the 1960s, Lahr provides an original interpretation of Miller’s work, personality, and legacy. Lahr will be in conversation with award-winning playwright John Guare. This was a virtual event, and you can watch the recording, here.
  • An online Yiddish theater workshop, as well as Yiddish courses on all levels, is starting on the week of January 15, sponsored by the venerable Toronto UJA Committee for Yiddish. Each course is $160. In the workshop, which will run on Tuesday evenings from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EST, students will act out the roles of the Yiddish translation (by Joseph Bulov and Luba Kadison) of Death of a Salesman. The same version New Yiddish Rep performed in New York City in 2015 to high acclaim, with Avi Hoffman playing the lead (pictures below). Scripts in the workshop will be available in both transliteration and in Yiddish, and no previous Yiddish or performance experience is required. The workshop will be facilitated by performer, director, and playwright, David Gale. Go here for more information or to sign up.
  • A new (2023) listserv for scholars interested in sharing news, announcements, and materials is being created. It is called INADR: International Network of American Drama Research and is hosted by the University of Erfurt, Germany, and they are inviting scholarly subscribers. You can subscribe and unsubscribe at any time without additional confirmation from the admin. Sign up here: https://www2.uni-erfurt.de/mailman/listinfo/inadr. If you want to share information or send out queries of a scholarly nature, send it to inadr@list.uni-erfurt.de and it will automatically be distributed to all subscribers. The list represents an effort to connect and expand the community of scholars that has emerged from various international American drama and theater conferences in Spain and France over the past two decades, so feel free to share the invitation with interested students and colleagues. The digital network aims to provide subscribers from around the world with a platform for sharing relevant information concerning their scholarly work in the field of North American drama and theater, such as announcements of upcoming conferences, digital lectures, publication opportunities, job openings, or fellowship competitions. You may also use the list to post inquiries concerning your research or teaching in the field of North American drama and theater. This list is unmoderated, meaning individual subscribers can share information directly with the entire list. We ask that you use this list for scholarly purposes only and refrain from personal and/or political statements, or any kind of spam.  
  • In celebration of Inge Morath’s upcoming centennial in May, 2023 — Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung’s Kunstfoyer, CLAIRByKahn and the Inge Morath Estate present a retrospective exhibition of Magnum Photos photographer, Inge Morath (1923-2002). Inge Morath – Hommage, 21 Dec, 2022 – 01 May, 2023. Kunstfoyer, Maximilianstr. 53, 80530 München, Germany. It will showcase close to 200 images from Inge’s prolific career featuring her iconic images, as well as portraits of celebrities, artists, and literary figures. Accompanying this retrospective exhibition is a book published by Schirmer/Mosel, edited by Isabel Siben and Anna-Patricia Kahn with text by Inge Morath. Also included in this book for the very first time, a special foreword by Morath’s daughter, Rebecca Miller. “No words can unravel Inge Morath’s complex, mysterious conundrum of a persona. Yet we have her photographs, which speak of her empathy, her lack of narcissism, her curiosity about other human beings and cultures, and her deep hope that art could be a candle against the darker elements of human nature.” — Rebecca Miller. For further inquiries, please contact: Isabel Siben | isabel.siben@vkb.de | Kunstfoyer; Anna-Patricia Kahn | apkahn@clairbykahn.com | CLAIRByKahn; or Sana Manzoor | sana@ingemorath.org | Inge Morath Estate.

    Mexico. Durango. Audrey Hepburn with her dog Mr. Famous, on set of The Unforgiven. 1959. by Inge Morath
  • 2022
  • Another Miller inspired play, Mrs. Loman, by Barbara Cassidy, presented by More Loud, running 5-20 November at The Tank, 312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in midtown Manhattan, NY. It imagines what Linda Loman from Death of a Salesman does after her husband commits suicide. A satirical critique of misogyny in Miller’s world. Directed by Meghan Finn, with Monique Vukovic (as Linda), Linda Jones (as Esther), Hartley Parker (as Happy), Matt “Ugly” McGlade (as Biff), Ara Celia Butler (as Lena), Patricia Marjorie (as “2022 Woman”), Jerry Ferris (as Charlie), and Joe Gregori (as Bernard). Call 212 563 6269 or check the website for more information.
  • Sasha Hutchings and Nik Walker to Host Arthur Miller Foundation Honors. Celebrating the power of public school theatre education, the annual event will be held November 14, 2022 in NYC. This year’s ceremony will feature songs written by the late Stephen Sondheim, with Broadway favorites joining the stage alongside NYC public school students. This year’s event will highlight three generations of student/teacher playwrights who will receive the Arthur Miller Foundation Legacy Awardcelebrating extraordinary women who have carved out a legacy in American theater. The award goes to Pulitzer Prize Winner Paula Vogel, her former student and fellow Pulitzer Prize Winner Lynn Nottage, and their former student and Tony nominee Christina AndersonThe Arthur Miller Foundation will also honor leading international publisher Penguin Random House with the Arthur Miller Foundation Arts & Culture AwardLinda Ames Key, an exemplary NYC public school theater teacher, will be given the Arthur Miller Foundation Excellence in Arts Education Award.

    Paula Vogel

    Lynn Nottage

    Christina Anderson
  • 21 Sept. 2022 The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College presented Claire Gleitman at an international book launch for her new book: Anxious Masculinity in the Drama of Arthur Miller and Beyond: Salesmen, Sluggers, and Big Daddies at 7 pm. The event was run on Zoom, and can be viewed here. Gleitman reads from her book and then is interviewed by Professor Sue Abbotson of Rhode Island College.
  • German power metal band Blind Guardian’s new album, The God Machine, released in 2022 contains a track apparently inspired by The Crucible titled ‘Deliver Us From Evil.’ All the other tracks are based on a variety of sci-fantasy novels and TV shows that include homages to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle, Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives, Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher, Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ice-Maiden, Battlestar Galactica, and The Leftovers! Strange company.
  • Australian composer Kate Moore’s “Crucible” for viola and marimba by Totemic released in 2022– the title inspired by Arthur Miller’s play, available through Bandcamp.

    Kate Moore’s “Crucible” by Totemic

    Abigail by Fury Theatre
  • Another play about Abigail: Abigail 2-7 May 2022 in person, then until 20 May online, written by Stephen Gillard and Laura Turner of Fury Theatre in association with Asylum Theatre at the Space, 269 Westferry Rd, Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs, London, UK. Tells the story of how Abigail and Mercy flee to Boston after the witch trials. Directed by Stephen Gillard with Laura Turner, Lucy Sheree Cooper, Sophie Jane Corner, and Haley Muraleedharan. Check out the trailer on YouTube. Once booked, Abigail can be watched on demand until 11pm on the 20th of May.
  • Robert (Bob) Miller, Miller’s eldest son died March 6th 2022.  Married for 45 years to Jean, whom he had met while exploring on Kesey’s Magic Bus with the Merry Pranksters. The couple had three children (Jessica, Kate and Zach). He had a successful career as a commercial, film and television director/producer (he produced the film versions of The Crucible featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, and Focus, featuring William H. Macy). He also directed for the stage at Pittsburgh Playhouse, and served as Distinguished Master of Arts in Residence at Point Park University for 7 years, where he was awarded an Honorary Doctoral of Arts degree. Please read the sensitive reflection on Bob’s life and career on the following link.
  • Jagriti Theatre, Whitefield, Bengaluru, India celebrated World Theatre Day on March 27 2022 by bringing to the stage a reading of Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. Arundhati Raja, the founder-trustee of Jagriti and director of the play says The Crucible was chosen because of its relevance in society today.
  • First collection of short stories since Personal Velocity (2001) from Rebecca Miller: Total (2022). Book Browse says: “Each of the seven stories in Total is a full world, painted with vivid strokes, one whose people and questions stay with the reader long after the story has ended and the book has been closed” and gives it five stars, while Kirkus Review asserts: “A beautifully constructed, acutely felt, morally honest collection.” 

    Jagriti Theatre’s staged reading of The Crucible
  • Plays featuring Miller or riffing of his work seem to have become very popular these days–on 26 March 2022, as part of the Broadway at The Bank Show And Gala, at the Arts Bank in Fort Plain, New York, was a production of Wildfire Dogs by Sean Lynch, a short play about a chance meeting between Miller, and Joe DiMaggio in a Manhattan hotel bar seven years after the death of their ex-wife, Monroe. Sean Lynch played DiMaggio, Pete Mizzo, Miller and Chelsea LeSage was Enid the bartender.

    Milkwaukee Repertory Theatre opens Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 6. 2022
  • Eleanor Burgess (who wrote The Niceties), has written a play titled Wife of a Salesman, that riffs off Miller’s Death of a  Salesman. It was first be produced in 2022 by Writers Theatre in association with Milwaukee Repertory Theater, running from 3 March-3 April, with an official opening on 11 March at the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe, IL. Directed by Jo Bonney with Kate Fry, Amanda Drinkall, Rom Barkholder, and Dekyi Rongé. Set design by Heather Gilber. Billed as “A recentering of where ‘attention must be paid.’ What if a 1950s housewife from a particularly well-known American play drove from Brooklyn to Boston to confront her husband’s mistress? Would the encounter be explosive? Or would the two women discover they have more in common than one might assume? Taking inspiration from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, this world premiere play imagines how a potentially combustible confrontation brings themes of marriage, duty and division to the surface—and the ways in which the world has, and hasn’t, changed across generations.” Sounds intriguing. The play is now getting another run at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. It opens on Tuesday, Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 6.  2022. Directed by Marti Lyons, with Heidi Armbruster. Check their website for more information.
  • Another new play connected to Miller. The Unamerican premiering 24 Feb.-13 March 2022. A new play by Claude Solnik about Miller, Kazan and Monroe, and their interactions with HUAC, performed by Theater for the New City (TNC), 155 First Ave., between 9th and 10th Sts., NY. Directed by Joseph John Battista, with Albert Insinnia (as Kazan), Victorious Konig (Monroe) and Andrew Ryan Perry (Miller), also Michael Donato, Paige Susan Anderson, and Tony Del Bono. Staging by John Constantine. Call 212 254 1109 or check the website for more information.

The Unamerican
  • At Connecticut’s Ridgefield Theater Barn a cabaret production of Divas 4-28 Feb. 2022 is currently running. It is a set of 7 related sketches by Jack Neary, about two veteran theater thespians (played by Deborah Connelly and Nancy Sinacori) who’ve seen it all and have something piercing to say about it all, and about each other. In the opening scene, they are not so much enjoying as enduring a performance of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, with their arch-rival playing the highly coveted role of Linda (Mrs. Willy) Loman. Check the website for tickets and more information.
  • Canadian power metal outfit Lycanthro have unleashed a very Arthur Miller inspired video for the lead single off their newest album Mark of the Wolf (2022) the single is even titled: “Crucible.” Check it out on YouTube if you dare!
  • Adrien Brody …

    and Ana de Armas as Monroe in Blonde

    With the “sons” of Edward G. Robinson and Charlie Chaplin
  • Netflix movie Blonde, based on episodes from Marilyn Monroe’s life as related in Joyce Carol Oates’ “historical novel” of the same name; features Adrien Brody as Miller and Ana de Armas as Monroe (finally fixed a release date of 23 September 2022 on Netflix after its entry into the Venice Film Festival). Oates considers her book to be a work of fiction rather than a biography. Here is a short promotional video teaser.
  • We say a sad goodbye to Arthur Miller’s sister, the actress Joan Copeland who died 4th Jan. 2022, just a few months shy of turning 100. Here is a link to an obituary.

2021

  • Death of a Salesman is the next topic to be explored by University of Maine at Farmington’s New Commons Project with a series of events free and open to the public, including “What Is a Worker’s Life Worth?: Gen Z, Millennials, and the Death of the American Dream.” Lecture and Workshop by Max Alvarez, on Friday, Nov. 19, 2021, 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. “Workers’ Rights and Current Strikes: Reading Death of a Salesman in a New Era of Labor Unrest.” Local Workers Roundtable with Max Alvarez, on Saturday, Nov. 20, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., Roberts Learning Center, Rm. 131. And Death of a Salesman Community Performance on 9-12 Dec. in the UMF Emery Community Arts Center. Directed by award-winning playwright, Linda Britt, the cast of this featured performance is comprised of community members as well as faculty, staff, students and alumni. Because the play is sponsored by The New Commons Project, admission to the performances is free, but reservations are required, and Covid protocols must be followed. Anyone interested in attending can register at https://forms.gle/DrT4EHUnLdqjDAjb8. Please contact Kristen Case, co-Director of the NCP, for more information (kristen.case@maine.edu or 207-778-7239). To learn more about the New Commons Project, and to view many of the events for the first 12 topics, visit the website at https://newcommonsproject.org/.
  • Histeria. La Cacería [Hysteria. The Hunting] is a new dance piece that will be performed in November 2021 by a youth contemporary dance group in Paraguay, South America. Choreographed by Félix Álvarez, the piece was inspired by The Crucible.
  • Off Broadway, a two-hour “zoom” play by Torrey Townsend, directed by Robert O’Hara, with Dylan Baker, Becky Ann Baker, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jason Butler Harner, Richard Kind, and Kara Wang is set in a fictitious off-Broadway theater where Marla (Dukes), the Black literary manager, is up in arms that the theater is planning to reopen with Miller’s All My Sons, directed by a white British codger whom Steph (Wang), an Asian American assistant, was surprised to learn isn’t dead. A virtual production of Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real, featuring an all-white cast and perversely marketed as a “Zoomedy,” adds to the sense of being trapped on a ship moving full steam ahead into an iceberg. Charles McNulty’s review for the L. A. Times was fairly scathing—great cast but hated the play as being far too simplistic in its portrayal of systemic racism in the theatre production system. You can currently watch the play here for free.
  • 18th June 2021 at 7.30pm ET, a new play Abigail, another one based on Miller’s character from The Crucible, got a live stream at the Inaugural Hamilton Arts Festival that runs June 17 – 25, 2021, in Paterson, NJ. Written by Sarah Tuft, the second place winner of the PPADC 2020 Show Me The Monologue Playwriting Competition, and directed by Kristen Penner, with Linus Gelber, Isabella Change, Steph Van Vlack, and Kevin Allen, this virtual workshop production will stream live over ZOOM. Abigail tells the story of a renowned stage actress who hires her Hollywood director husband to helm an American theater classic—The Crucible—on Broadway. But when he insists on casting a YouTube star to play the lead Abigail Williams, her objection to the role’s misogyny threatens to unpin the play and all its players. A portrait of an older woman’s complicity and a younger woman’s disruption. Abigail is a dramatic play that examines our #METOO culture and reverence for icons that perpetuates a cycle of predatory behavior. Abigail is a 2021 O’Neil and 2020 Ashland Finalist. Check their Facebook events page for more information
  • Adam Howell and Paul Hurt’s Marilyn Monroe musical Blonde is streaming via DerbyLIVE 1-16 May 2021, co-produced by the Kristian Thomas Company. Directed by Tom Hopcroft, with Verity Power as Monroe and Anna Bond as Norma Jeane, and Charlie Ellerton as both Miller AND Joe DiMaggio. Check the link to book a ticket and see the preview on YouTube.
  • The Crucible 17 March 2021 online discussion about Miller and Shakespeare at 7.30pm EST, as part of Shakespeare Hour Live series by Shakespeare Theatre Company, in preparation for an upcoming production of The Crucible in Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW, Washington, D.C (dates supposedly TBA–but not in the 2021-2022 lineup). Hosted by Simon Godwin, Artistic Director; and Dr. Drew Lichtenberg, Resident Dramaturg. With panelists: Whitney White, OBIE Award winning director (who will be directing the upcoming production); Jason Butler Harner (played Parris in Ivo Van Hove’s The Crucible); and Dr. Susan Abbotson, Miller Scholar and professor of English at Rhode Island College. The episode is available on their YouTube website.
Dr. Susan Abbotson, Jason Butler Harner, and Whitney White, doing a Shakespeare Hour Live, episode #40.

2020

  • Collection Connections: Arthur Miller remixes Jane Austen classic for radio on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020, at 4:30 p.m. in an online presentation. In 1945, American playwright Arthur Miller adapted British novelist Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the radio. The quirky adaptation aired just before Thanksgiving Day 75 years ago, a few years before Miller became a household name as author of plays like All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Tune in as Jane Austen scholar and UT professor Janine Barchas talks about the original script with Eric Colleary, the Ransom Center’s curator of theatre and performing arts. Did this unlikely remix for the airwaves lead to success? Decide for yourself and listen to the play before “dialing” into the discussion and live Q&A: https://archive.org/…/Tgoa_45-11-18_ep011-Pride_and…The program will stream live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/884891578582091/ and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/HarryRansomCenterHave a question or comment for one of our speakers? Simply post them in the comments section.

 

  • The New York Public Library has acquired by gift, and through the generosity of his family, Arthur Miller’s collection of his published plays, books, translations, anthologies, and other publications relating to his work in various editions, comprising 692 volumes in total. Along with editions of his writings in English, the acquisition includes an extensive collection of translations into many European languages, plus Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and others. Several are inscribed with his name and other occasional annotations. Miller’s collection also contains essays, theatrical analysis and commentary, audio cassettes, magazines, and other ephemera, spanning the years 1928 – 2012. Also represented are a small number of works by other authors, among which four scripts by playwright Harold Pinter are of particular note.
         The books will be added to the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, which contains some 35,000 printed volumes, pamphlets, and broadsides, and 2,000 linear feet of literary archives and manuscripts, representing the work of more than 400 authors. The Berg has long collected books from the libraries of significant authors and literary figures, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, Lady Gregory, and Kenneth Koch. Other highlights of the acquisition include:

      • Personalized copies of Miller’s novels – including a 1951 edition of An Enemy of the People, inscribed to Marilyn Monroe, and a 2001 edition of On Politics and the Art of Acting to Inge Morath.
      • Extensive translations of Miller’s work, including nine translations of The Crucible (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish).
      • “Death of a Salesman in Scandinavia” – a box of newspaper clippings, theatre programmes, and other ephemera primarily related to a touring production 1949-1950.
  • Cape Cod Theatre Project in Falmouth, MA, will debut four in-development scripts this summer through July weekend readings. There will still be discussion afterwards, and separate chats with playwrights and directors. On July 23 and 25 2020: Kevin Artigue’s based-on-history “I, My Ruination” is set in the 1950s, when director Elia Kazan faces a second visit to the House Un-American Activities Committee and is visited by playwright Arthur Miller. Featuring Paul Giamatti as Kazan and Corey Stoll as Miller! Also with Nina Arianda, Arian Moayed, and Pedro Pascal. Shows and talkbacks will be streamed online at 7 p.m. Thursdays and Saturdays. The series is a benefit for CCTP so admission is by suggested donation: $25 per play, $100 for a full pass. Information and access for all: capecodtheatreproject.org. Seems to have sold out fast at the $25 rate but it looks like some passes for I, Ruination still available for a $50 donation at Vendini.

    Miller and Kazan

    Corey Stoll

    Paul Giamatti
  • A rather bizarre recent pop-culture reference to Miller is a scene in the Hulu series Devs, where an attempt is made to harness quantum computer power to spy on historical events–they go from watching Jesus dying on the cross to a scene one of them calls “The celebrity sex tape to end all celebrity sex tapes.” And they have a blurry scene of Miller and Monroe making love!!!
  • Two of the most intense and complicated relationships of Arthur Miller’s life were his friendship with Elia Kazan and his love for Marilyn Monroe. Miller discussed these himself in Timebends, and many commentators have sought additional information and perspectives on how these three lives intersected and evolved. Richard A. Schwartz, an emeritus professor at Florida International University, explores these relationships through the lens and insights that only literature can provide. In his newly published novel, Collaborators, he, “strives to remain historically accurate while imagining the characters’ interior lives as they attract and repel one another while negotiating their way through turbulent times.” The book is available on Amazon in both a paperback and a Kindle edition.

    Studio Theatre, Washington, DC
  • John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower, inspired by The Crucible was presented as a rolling world premiere in the Alliance Theatre’s 2020-21 season of their Classic Remix Project, on Hertz Stage, 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta, GA. Call 404-733-5000 or check their website for updates. Several other theaters have since picked this up including a production at Wake Forest University Theatre 4-23 Feb. 2022: Call the Theatre Box Office at (336) 758-5295 or purchase online at theatre.wfu.edu, and Studio Theatre 27 April-5 June 2022, in the Mead Theatre, 1501 14th St NW, Washington, DC. Directed by Marti Lyons, with set design by Luciana Stecconi (see above for cast). Call 202.332.3300 or check their website for more information. Huntington Theatre in Boston also offered an excellent production with their own cast in Feb. 2024 that had a near sell-out run.
  • The inaugural audio production for Sioux Empire Community Theatre presents Death of a Jazz Man, an apparently witty and hilarious retelling of the theatre classic Death of a Salesman. The entire 26 minute recording (2020) was done remotely, with members of the community theatre taking on all the roles of production and performance. With Jeff Gould, Emily Wilson, Robin Byrne, Jesse Jensen, Jordan Deffenbaugh, and music by Ryan Reiffenberger. Check the website to donate or their FaceBook page to hear the show.

    Salesman 之死 at Target Margin
  • Salesman之死: The (Almost!) True Story of the 1983 Production of Death of a Salesman at the Beijing People’s Arts Theatre Directed by Mr. Arthur Miller Himself From a Script Translated By Mr. Ying Ruocheng Who Also Played Willy Loman 29 March-19 April 2020 by Jeremy Tiang, co-conceived and directed by Michael Leibenluft. Presented by Target Margin Theatre, @ the Doxsee, 232 52nd St, Sunset park, Brooklyn, NY. The play focuses on Arthur Miller’s 1983 visit in Beijing to direct Death of a Salesman, and is produced by Yangtze Repertory Theatre and Gung Ho Projects. Call 718.398.3095 or check the website.[Postponed until further notice due to Coronavirus]

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