Spotlight on Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller is remembered as one of the greatest playwrights in American theatre. His classic drama, “All My Sons,” opens this weekend at the Vam York Theater.

Miller was born in 1915 in New York City to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents. His family was well off, but lost everything in the stock market crash in 1929; he saved for college by working in an auto parts factory. He began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan, winning enough money through awards to finish his degree. After graduation, he married his college sweetheart and worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard while writing radio scripts (some of which were produced by CBS) and a play he felt would make or break his career: “All My Sons.”

“All My Sons” displays many of the recurring themes in Miller’s work: the influence of playwright Henrik Ibsen is seen in the relationship of the two business partners and the question of responsibility, while Miller’s own criticism of the American Dream shines through the outward normalcy of the Kellers’ lives.

The play premiered on Broadway in January 1947. It was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Ed Begley and Karl Malden. New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson called it "an honest, forceful drama about a group of people caught up in a monstrous swindle that has caused the death of 21 Army pilots because of defectively manufactured cylinder heads." The show won Tony Awards for best author and best direction, and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award over Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh."

The rest of Miller’s story is the stuff of legends: the success of “Death of a Salesman,” written in 1948; his fallout with Kazan over the director’s compliance with the House Un-American Activities Committee; his stab at the committee with his most-produced play, “The Crucible”; his troubled second marriage to Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe and her death, 19 months after their divorce. In his lifetime, he wrote more than 35 stage plays, more than 20 radio and movie scripts, and six nonfiction books. Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the National Medal of Arts, several Tony Awards, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish prize, and the Jerusalem Prize. He died in 2005 at the age of 89. His daughter, Rebecca Miller, is married to actor Daniel Day-Lewis. For a more in-depth portrait, check out the New York Times obituary.

“All My Sons,” directed by Margery Pierson, previews on Thursday, September 13 and opens Friday, September 14. See you there!