The Young Vic and West End theatre production of Death of a Salesman is transferring to Broadway next season.
The play will be directed by Miranda Cromwell, who co-directed the London production with Marianne Elliott, with the pair winning the 2020 Olivier Award for Best Direction.
Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Serious Money, The Piano Lesson, Jack Ryan) and Sharon D Clarke (Caroline, Or Change) will reprise their acclaimed performances as Willy and Linda Loman. Clarke won the 2020 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the role, and Pierce was nominated for Best Actor.
The Broadway cast will also include Tony Award winner André De Shields (Hadestown) as Willy’s brother, Ben, and stage and screen actor Khris Davis (Heart of a Lion, Sweat, Atlanta, Judas and the Black Messiah) as son Biff.
Director Miranda Cromwell said to the press: “Looking at Death of a Salesman from the perspective of a Black family living in a predominantly White capitalist world changes the way that you hear this text Wendell and Sharon illuminate the heart of this play in a new way that is both universal and entirely specific. I have always been fascinated by the Loman family’s wrestle with assimilation, and the cost of that struggle on one’s mental health, on your family and on your community. This production breathes new life into a show that people think they know.”
Elliott Harper Productions and Cindy Tolan produced the Young Vic and West End production, and both are involved in the Broadway transfer. Tolan said: “When this production played at the Young Vic in 2019, we heard from so many young people seeing it for the first time, who said they felt like the play was written specifically for them and for this era. We’re excited to bring that feeling to New York audiences, and we hope that the show’s timeless relevance resonates in the same way.”
Marianne Elliott and Chris Harper of Elliott and Harper Productions said: “We’re thrilled to bring this new production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman to Broadway, led by the brilliant Miranda Cromwell. Miranda brings a unique vision and perspective to this classic piece of American theater and explores some of the most important themes at the heart of the show in an entirely new light. There is no better team to tell this story for a new generation of Broadway audiences.”
Arthur Miller’s modern classic won six Tony Awards including Best Play when it first premiered on Broadway in 1949, and has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play.
This production ran in London at the Young Vic Theatre from 1 May to 13 July 2019, and transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre, running from 24 October 2019 to 4 January 2020.
More information on dates, theatre, cast and creative team to be announced.
