'Death of a Salesman,' starring Wendell Pierce and Sharon D Clarke, to open on Broadway
The production first played in London's West End.
UPDATE: Death of a Salesman will play Broadway's Hudson Theatre for 17 weeks, with performances beginning September 19.
Death of a Salesman will receive its fifth Broadway revival in 2022, this time a transfer of an acclaimed West End production. Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell's production of Arthur Miller's play, starring Wendell Pierce and Sharon D Clarke, will open on Broadway next season, with Cromwell directing. Dates and a venue have yet to be announced.
The London production first premiered at the Off-West End Young Vic theatre in 2019 before transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre in the West End. Both productions received critical acclaim; a five-star London Theatre review of the Piccadilly engagement reads, "As the production switches effortlessly from the naturalistic present to a painfully recalled past, it reverberates with feeling, grief and pain."
The directors and lead actors remain intact for the Broadway transfer. Both directors have previously brought West End productions across the pond: Elliott is currently represented on Broadway with the latest Company revival, which won four Olivier Awards in 2018, and Cromwell was previously the U.K. associate director of the 2018 Angels in America production that came to New York from London.
Pierce, as Willy Loman, returns to Broadway for the first time in 10 years. Also a producer, he mounted Clybourne Park on Broadway in 2012, and his last Broadway performance was in Serious Money in 1988. Clarke made her Broadway debut in 2021 as Caroline Thibodeaux in Caroline, or Change, a role she reprised after winning an Olivier for it in London.
In addition to Pierce and Clarke, Hadestown Tony Award winner André De Shields will play Willy's brother, Ben, and Khris Davis will play the Lomans' son Biff. Additional casting for the production has yet to be announced.
Death of a Salesman, first performed in 1949, has come to be regarded as one of the best American plays of the 20th century. Miller's tragedy is told through a collection of memories of the titular traveling salesman, Willy Loman, concerning his family and his work. He is disappointed with his life and is on the brink of becoming senile, and the play explores the forces — including his own failings and his capitalist society — that contributed to his decline. Death of a Salesman won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 1949, and the show has also won the Best Play Revival Tony three times.
Death of a Salesman was last revived on Broadway in 2012, and the 2022 production is the latest in a string of Miller revivals in recent years. A 2019 production of All My Sons, starring Tracy Letts and Annette Bening, went up with Roundabout Theatre Company and received three Tony Award nominations. Three years earlier, The Crucible received a revival starring Saiorse Ronan.
Check back for information on Death of a Salesman tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
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