KDTN PRESENTS TALKING TO Arthur Miller

IN THE SPRING of 1948, Arthur Miller chose a place on his Connecticut land to build a small cabin. He had the first two lines of a new play in his mind – “Willy!” and “It’s all right. I came backhand, as he built his cabin, those lines turned over and over in his head. When he finished building the cabin, he went inside and wrote of the life and death of Willy Loman. He finished the first half of Death of a Salesman in a day, and he completed the play six weeks later.

Willy Loman’s tragedy expressed so much of the essence of the American experience that it has become, perhaps, the great American play. During the last 40 years, Arthur Miller has become one of our most significant playwrights, capturing in his plays our most challenging social and moral dilemmas. In All My Sons (recently produced by the Dallas Theater Center), he explored moral questions on the homefront during World War II. In the midst of McCarthyism during the 1950s, he wrote The Crucible (recently produced at Southern Methodist University) about the personal and social tragedies that are the consequence of a public witchhunt. In 1987, Miller completed his autobiography, Timebends, and now, at 75, he continues to write new plays that challenge and illuminate the Amer can imagination.

In February, Arthur Miller visited Dallas to accept the 1991 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts, presented by the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. KDTN took that opportunity to produce A Conversation With Arthur Miller, which is hosted by Lee Cullum and made possible by a grant frorr the Garvey Texas Foundation. Cullum, editorial page editor of the Dallas Times Herald, enjoyed the opportunity of talking with Miller not only about his plays, but also about his persoal reflections about his wide range of experiences. “Miller testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the ’50s, and so brings great insight to that sad chapter in American life, ” she says. “He also has become a thoughtful commentator on the contemporary world. It was fascinating to see how he views the America of the ’90s. “

Debra Skriba is producer of A. Conversation With Arthur Miller.