Tony-Winning Best Plays 1947-1986
Discover the Tony-winning best plays from 1947-1986, featuring timeless dramas like Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, plus Stoppard and Bolt classics. Explore iconic, award-winning theater masterpieces in this curated book list.
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Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller
The Pulitzer Prize-winning tragedy of a salesman’s deferred American dream, presented here with enlightening commentary and criticism Willy Loman, the protagonist of Death of a Salesman, has spent his life following the American way, living out his belief in salesmanship as a way to reinvent himself. But somehow the riches and respect he covets have eluded him. At age 63, he searches for the moment his life took a wrong turn, the moment of betrayal that undermined his relationship with his wife and destroyed his relationship with Biff, the son in whom he invested his faith. Willy lives in a fragile world of elaborate excuses and daydreams, conflating past and present in a desperate attempt to make sense of himself and of a world that once promised so much. Since it was first performed in 1949, Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the tragic shortcomings of an American dreamer has been recognized as a milestone of the theater. This Viking Critical Library edition of Death of a Salesman contains the complete text of the play, typescript facsimiles, and extensive critical and contextual material including: Conflicting reviews about its opening night by Robert Garland, Harold Clurman, Eleanor Clark, and others Five articles by Miller on his play, including "Tragedy and the Common Man" and his "Introduction to Collected Plays" Critical essays by John Gassner, Ivor Brown, Joseph A. Hynes, and others General essays on Miller by William Weigand, Allan Seager, and others Analogous works by Eudora Welty, Walter D. Moody, Tennessee Williams, and Irwin Shaw The stage designer's account, presented in selections from Designing for the Theatre by Jo Mielziner An in-depth introduction by the editor, a chronology, a list of topics for discussion and papers, and a bibliography
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The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community A Penguin Classic "I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to The Crucible, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing: "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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A Man for All Seasons
by Robert Bolt
The dramatization of Sir Thomas More's historic conflict with Henry VIII—a compelling portrait of a courageous man who died for his convictions and a modern classic that "challenges the mind, and, in the end, touches the heart" (New York Times). Sir Thomas More—the brilliant nobleman, lawyer, humanist, author of such works as Utopia—was a long-time friend and favorite of Henry VIII, ascending to the position of Lord Chancellor in 1529. Yet he was also a staunch Catholic, and when Henry broke with the Church in 1531 after the Pope had refused to grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, More resigned the Chancellorship. In 1534, Parliament passed a bill requiring all subjects to take an oath acknowledging the supremacy of England's king over all foreign sovereigns—including the Pope. More refused, was imprisoned, and finally was executed in 1535.
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Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Tom Stoppard was catapulted into the front ranks of modem playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. Its subsequent run in New York brought it the same enthusiastic acclaim, and the play has since been performed numerous times in the major theatrical centers of the world. It has won top honors for play and playwright in a poll of London Theater critics, and in its printed form it was chosen one of the "Notable Books of 1967" by the American Library Association.
