Fine Arts department

IB Drama's "The Crucible"

PLAYWRIGHT ARTHUR MILLER

American playwright who combined in his works social awareness with deep insights into personal weaknesses of his characters'. Miller is best known for the play DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949), or on the other hand, for his marriage to the actress Marilyn Monroe. Miller's plays continued the realistic tradition that began in the United States in the period between the two world wars. With Tennessee Williams, Miller was one of the best-known American playwrights after WW II. Several of his works were filmed by such director as John Huston, Sidney Lumen and Karol Ruiz.

Arthur Miller was born in New York. His father, Isadora Miller, was a ladies-wear manufacturer and shopkeeper who were ruined in the depression. The family moved to a small frame house in Brooklyn, which is said to the model for the Brooklyn home in Death of a Salesman. Miller spent his boyhood playing football and baseball, reading adventure stories. After graduating from a high school in 1932, Miller worked in automobile parts warehouse to earn money for college. Having read Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov Miller decided to become a writer.

In 1956 Miller was awarded honorary degree at the University of Michigan but also called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Miller admitted that he had attended certain meetings, but denied that he was a Communist. Miller was cited for contempt of Congress, but the ruling was reversed by the courts in 1958.

List of Miller’s famous plays
1944. The Man Who Had All the Luck --closed after 4 performances
1947. All My Sons, opened at the Coronet (1/29) and ran for 328 performances--Miller's first major success.
1949. Death of A Salesman, 1950.
1953. The Crucible. Opened at the Martin Beck (1/12) for 197 performances.
1956. A View From the Bridge, one-act version paired with another one-acter, A Memory of Two Mondays. Opened at the Coronet (9/29) for 149 performances.
1956. A View From the Bridge, two-act version) 1964. After the Fall, opened at the ANTA Washington Square (1/23) for 208 performances.

Source: No author. Kirjasto. 2003. Books and Authors. <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi>

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