Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman
First edition cover (Viking Press)
Written by	Arthur Miller
Characters	Willy Loman Linda Loman Biff Loman Happy Loman Ben Loman Bernard Charley The Woman Howard
Date premiered	February 10, 1949
Place premiered	Morosco Theatre New York City
Original language	English
Subject	The waning days of a failing salesman
Genre	Tragedy
Setting	Late 1940s; Willy Loman's house; New York City and Barnaby River; Boston

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 stage play written by the American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. It is a two-act tragedy set in late 1940s Brooklyn told through a montage of memories, dreams, and arguments of the protagonist Willy Loman, a travelling salesman who is despondent with his life and appears to be slipping into senility. The play addresses a variety of themes, such as the American Dream, the anatomy of truth, and infidelity.^[1][2] It won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. It is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century.^[3] The play was selected as one of the best plays of 1948–1949, with an excerpted version published in The Burns Mantle Best Plays of 1948–1949.^[4]

Since its premiere, the play has been revived on Broadway five times,^[5] winning three Tony Awards for Best Revival. It has been adapted for the cinema on ten occasions, including a 1951 version by screenwriter Stanley Roberts, starring Fredric March. In 1999, New Yorker drama critic John Lahr said that with 11 million copies sold, it was "probably the most successful modern play ever published."^[6]