Death of a Salesman on Broadway

Following a critically acclaimed run in London, this vibrant and timely production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman comes to Broadway. Olivier Award nominee Wendell Pierce and Olivier Award winner and 2022 Tony® nominee Sharon D Clarke reprise their roles as Willy and Linda Loman in a revival told – for the first time on Broadway – from the perspective of an African American family. A new cast of supporting actors joins the production in New York, led by Tony winner André De Shields and Khris Davis. Directed by Miranda Cromwell – who won an Olivier Award alongside co-director Marianne Elliott for the West End and Young Vic productions – this powerful interpretation of Miller’s classic drama illuminates the dark underbelly of the American Dream and its elusive promise of equality and opportunity for all. Don’t miss the brilliantly reimagined revival The New York Times called “vital and electrifying.”

Fresh from an acclaimed run in London, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman comes to Broadway with Wendell Pierce and Sharon D Clarke. Get Death of a Salesman tickets on TodayTix.

Death of a Salesman is a play about an aging man named Willy Loman who, as he descends into senility, is also coming to terms for the first time with the hard truths he's tried so long to suppress. Aged 60 when the play begins, Willy feels both personally and professionally unfulfilled, and he must gradually faced the no-longer-avoidable feeling that it's too late to improve his life.

Infidelity, capitalism, and self-delusion have taken their toll on him, and he tries to conjure idealized memories of his past while the real pain sneaks up on him. The main person who staunchly supports him through it all is his wife, Linda, even though there's little she can do. This bleak yet profound play is considered a masterwork of American theatre for the way Miller explores the depths of one man's psyche.

The premiere of Death of a Salesman on Broadway was in 1949, and the show won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year. The show has been performed across the U.S. and globally in places like India, Germany, and China (where Miller himself directed a production), and renowned actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman have taken on the role of Willy in various Death of a Salesman New York productions. Death of a Salesman has also been adapted into multiple films; Hoffman and Hoffman have also played the leading role on screen.

The 2022 revival production of Death of a Salesman originated at The Young Vic in London in May 2019 and transferred to the Picadilly Theatre in the West End in October 2019. Pierce and Clarke led those productions, too, to critical acclaim, and co-directors Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell won an Olivier Award for their work.

See world-class actors perform in a landmark play in Death of a Salesman in New York. Get Death of a Salesman tickets on TodayTix now.

What to Watch For

• Death of a Salesman is one of many examples of a "memory play." Though the play takes place in the present, lots of the action unfolds in memories and flashbacks as the characters look back on their younger selves. Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive and the Tony-nominated MJ The Musical are other recent Broadway shows in this genre.
• Talk about range! Marianne Elliott co-directed Death of a Salesman in London alongside Miranda Cromwell, who directs the show solo on Broadway. Elliott also directed the nine-time Tony-nominated Company revival in both London and New York, and got Olivier and Tony nominations. Maybe Cromwell will follow in Elliott's footsteps and get a Broadway directing nomination of her own!
• Speaking of range, multiple Death of a Salesman cast members were just on Broadway in musicals before, too. Clarke led the Broadway revival of Caroline, or Change on Broadway after doing so in London and earned a Tony nomination. And André De Shields, who plays Ben, is a Broadway veteran who most recently wrapped up his Tony-winning run as Hermes in Hadestown.
• Death of a Salesman has been on Broadway five times before, premiering in 1949. Revivals took place in 1975, 1984, 1999, and 2012; three of these won the Best Revival Tony.
• The 2022 revival is the first Broadway production of the show to feature a Black couple as the Lomans. A New York Times review of the London production reads that "race expands and exacerbates Willy’s suppressed fears that the world regards him as outcast, a loser, a clown," even as he's held tight to the "mythology and rules of the American dream of self-advancement."