1. ARTHUR MILLER

2. Arthur Miller  Born Arthur Asher Miller on October 17, 1915 in Harlem, New York  Parents: Polish-Jewish immigrants, Isidore and Augusta Miller  The family was relatively wealthy until the Stock Market crash in 1929  His job as a teenager was delivering bread in the mornings (yes, like Peeta)

3. Arthur Miller  Education:  College: University of Michigan.  Worked for the newspaper, Michigan Daily  Wrote his first play, No Villain, during this time period  Swapped his major to English  No Villain won the Avery Hopwood Award, which led him to consider a career as a playwright.

4. Arthur Miller  Not an immediately successful playwright  His 1940 play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, closed after four performances  His next play, All My Sons, opened on Broadway six years later to win a Tony Award for best author  After this success, he built a studio in Roxbury, Connecticut, where he wrote his most famous play, Death of a Salesman

5. Arthur Miller  Married three times, including a marriage to actress Marilyn Monroe (wrote a movie for Marilyn called The Misfits)  The U.S.’s House of Un-American Activities refused to renew Miller’s passport in 1956 because of his play, The Crucible, which is about the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts.  People feared he was a communist (at the time communists were feared because people believed they would try to take over and oppress the U.S.)

6. Arthur Miller  Had two children, Rebecca and Daniel, with an Austrian-American named Inges Morath (photographer)  Famous actor Daniel Day-Lewis is Miller’s son-in-law  Died in Roxbury, Connecticut, of heart failure at the age of 89… February 10, 2005

7. Death of a Salesman  Debuted on Broadway February 10, 1949  Won a Pulitzer Prize for drama  Won Tony Award for Best Play (also won three Tony Awards during a revival run on Broadway)  Setting: late 1940s, New York City and Boston, Massachusetts

8. Death of a Salesman  Plot: Willy is an overworked, traveling salesman whose state of mind weakens every day. His wife asks his boss to see if he can stay in New York to work, rather than traveling. This, however, leaves Willy more unsatisfied. Meanwhile, his two sons, Biff and Happy, are jobless… Only trouble can ensue.

9. The Crucible  Debuted on Broadway January 22, 1953  Won “Best Play” Tony Award  Setting: 1692, Salem, Massachusetts  A preacher’s niece, his daughter, and some of their friends are caught dancing around a fire in the woods, and rumors catch on that the girls could be witches. But are they really?  Was a metaphor for how people treated others they believed to be “communists.”