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He wrote the play in 1948, and it opened in New York City, directed by Kazan, in February 1949.

Miller had been exploring the ideas underlying Death of a Salesman since he was a teenager, when he wrote a story about a Jewish salesman he also drew on memories of an uncle. In fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best. Among us today this fear is as strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was. The quality in such plays that does shake us.derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. For Miller, it was important to place "the common man" at the centre of a tragedy. It is the tragedy of Willy Loman, a man destroyed by false values that are in large part the values of his society. Miller's next play, Death of a Salesman, became one of the most famous American plays of its period. It won Miller a Tony Award, and it was his first major collaboration with the director Elia Kazan, who also won a Tony.

All My Sons (1947 filmed 1948), a drama about a manufacturer of faulty war materials that strongly reflects the influence of Henrik Ibsen, was his first important play. His first public success was with Focus (1945 filmed 1962 ), a novel about anti-Semitism. With the money he earned he attended the University of Michigan (B.A., 1938), where he began to write plays. After graduation from high school he worked in a warehouse. Miller was shaped by the Great Depression, which brought financial ruin onto his father, a small manufacturer, and demonstrated to the young Miller the insecurity of modern existence. He is best known for Death of a Salesman (1949). The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances, and has been revived on Broadway four times, winning three Tony Awards for Best Revival.Īrthur Miller, in full Arthur Asher Miller, (born October 17, 1915, New York, New York, U.S.-died February 10, 2005, Roxbury, Connecticut), American playwright, who combined social awareness with a searching concern for his characters' inner lives. It won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play.

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller.