CALHOUN COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE PRESENTS. Arthur Miller's. Produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

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1 CALHOUN COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE PRESENTS Arthur Miller's Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem Produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. CALHOUN COMMUNITY COLLEGE Black Box Theatre Fine Arts Building Decatur Campus

2 President s Message Welcome to Calhoun Community College. We are delighted that you have come our way to enjoy another outstanding production by our talented Theater Department. Calhoun s Theater program has a stellar reputation, and I know you will be entertained. I look forward to what this year s theater season has in store, and I hope you will join us again. Thank you for your support of Calhoun Community College and of the arts. Marilyn Beck President 2

3 CALHOUN THEATRE POLICIES Thank you for supporting Calhoun Theatre. The cast and crew welcome you to the Black Box Theatre and Death of a Salesman. If you wish to greet the actors or crew members, you are welcome to remain in the theatre after the show. IN CONSIDERATION OF AUDIENCE MEMBERS AND PERFORMERS, PLEASE... SWITCH ALL PAGERS, CELL PHONES, AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES OFF OR TO THE MUTE MODE. CELL PHONES SHOULD BE PUT AWAY. TEXT-MESSAGING IS PROHIBITED DURING THE PERFORMANCE. NO PHOTOGRAPHING OR VIDEOTAPING Pictures and videos of the play are available from the Theatre Department. BABIES AND NOISY CHILDREN ARE PROHIBITED. Please consider others, and do not ask to bring children five and under into the theatre. HANDICAPPED SEATING IS AVAILABLE FOR ALL SHOWS. Please inquire at the ticket desk if you require assistance. FOR SAFETY REASONS, IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT AUDIENCE MEMBERS DO NOT LEAVE THEIR SEATS WHILE THE PLAY IS IN PROGRESS. THOSE WHO DO LEAVE THE THEATRE MAY NOT BE RESEATED UNTIL INTERMISSION. LATE COMERS WILL BE SEATED AT THE DISCRETION OF THE HOUSE MANAGER. ENJOY THE SHOW! 3

4 Arthur Miller Arthur Miller believed that playwrights had a responsibility to the world around them. Miller s life was shaped by the Great Depression. Born in 1915 into an affluent Jewish-American family, he grew up during the 1920s, an idealistic and prosperous time for the nation. Sweeping change was everywhere. America s victory in World War I promised an end to all future wars; women had been granted the right to vote, broadening and strengthening the country s democratic principles; and Prohibition offered the hope to its many supporters for God s kingdom on earth. Throughout the land, there was a growing belief in the greatness and destiny of the United States. The foundation of this conviction rested on a decade-long economic boom that brought unprecedented material advancement. The prosperity was fueled by the stock market, which in those days allowed investors to buy shares with only a small percentage of the actual price, called margins. But in 1929, it all came crashing down. Marginal buying proved to be a house of cards, Wall Street collapsed, and the nation - and soon the rest of the world - plunged into The Great Depression. People lost their savings and their jobs. Everywhere businesses closed down, and millions of unemployed workers swarmed onto the streets, standing in bread lines and desperately searching for work. The Miller family were among the victims of the crash. Young Arthur had grown up in a large house with servants, but when his father s coat-manufacturing business went bankrupt, he didn t even have enough money to go to college. Undeterred, he found a job as a shipping clerk in an automobile parts warehouse for $15 a week and managed to save enough money to enroll at the University of Michigan. There he studied journalism and English and graduated in But Miller never got over the effects of the Depression. He later wrote I did not read many books in those days. The depression was my book...there was the sense that everything had dried up. Some plague of invisible grasshoppers was eating money before you could get your hands on it. You had to be a Ph. D. to get a job in Macy s. Lawyers were selling ties... Before the crash I thought Society meant the rich people in the Social Register. After the crash it meant the constant visits of strange men who knocked on our door pleading for a chance to wash the windows, and some of them fainted on the back porch from hunger. In Brooklyn, New York. In the light of weekday afternoons. The Depression ground on relentlessly for ten long years, despite the efforts of President Roosevelt and the government to turn things around. But nothing worked. As the Depression took on the look of a permanent economic condition rather than a temporary downturn, 4

5 Miller, like many Americans, began to question the merits of a system that had failed so utterly and left millions of families in poverty. He believed that America had lost its way, that in our devotion to wealth we had lost sight of the values and ideals of the founding fathers, and in our national mad dash to get rich we had lost our sense of fairness and compassion. To show that something was wrong, Miller wrote Death of a Salesman. Theatre, he believed, had a power to move and change. He wrote that drama presents... the idea of value, of right and wrong, good and bad, high and low, not so much by setting forth these values as such, but by showing...the wages of sin...in other words, by showing [in my plays] what happens when there are no values, I assume that the audience will be compelled and propelled toward a more intense quest for values that are missing. For instance, should one admire success? Was success immoral? - when everybody else in the neighborhood not only had no Buick, but no breakfast? [We Americans] still have the energy - if we could only find out how to form it and use it and symbolize it - to ask the big questions: Why are we alive? What does it all mean?...i cannot accept that each man is an island and that...theater is something done altogether for the pleasure of the artist and altogether to divert people from real life. I think there is a mission. That mission for Miller was to point out misguided material values and the resulting fragmenting of the family. His first great critical and financial success was All My Sons, which condemned dishonest business practices. Two years later, Death of a Salesman probed flawed American values. In 1953, The Crucible, a scathing condemnation of the anti-communist hysteria after World War II, compared the hearings of the House Committee on Un- American Activities with New England witch trials of the 1690s. By that time, Miller was already established as one of America s greatest playwrights. He continued writing plays until he was almost ninety, although his best work was written in the first half of his career. He is perhaps best-known for his 1956 marriage to and subsequent divorce from the iconic actress Marilyn Monroe. His 1964 play After the Fall, which premiered shortly after Monroe s suicide, was based upon their relationship. Miller was also a tireless and courageous defender of human rights and individual liberties. Arthur Miller died on February 10, 2005, at the age of eighty-nine, exactly forty-six years to the day that Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway. That play, like so many others that he wrote, is the legacy of a man who strived to build a better the world around him. 5

6 Cast of Characters Willy Loman...Bubba Godsey Linda...Emily Parks Biff...Jake Blagburn Happy...Ashley Hubbert Bernard...Quentin Barrentine Eddie Vancil Woman...Katie Whitworth Charley...Daniel Martin Ben...James Davis Howard...Blake Mitchell Jenny...Heather Anderson Sandy...Melinda Simpkins Trey Warren Miss Forsythe...Meredith Rose Erica Chambers Letta...Krista McCarty Erica Chambers Elrod...Quentin Barrentine Eddie Vancil The action of the play takes place in Willy Loman s house and yard in Brooklyn in 1949 and in various places he visits and has visited in New York and Boston. Act I Act II Requiem Monday Night Tuesday Morning A Few Days Later Death of a Salesman runs approximately two hours, including a ten-minute intermission. 6

7 Production Staff Director...Bill Provin Set Designer...Bubba Godsey Set Builders...Eddie Vancil Heather Anderson Ashley Hubbert James Davis Costumes...Cathy Parker Joy Parker Heather Anderson Lighting Designer...Bubba Godsey Lighting Operator...Aaron Lovell Music/Sound...Bill Provin Props...Cathy Parker Joy Parker Heather Anderson Makeup...Katie Whitworth Assistant Directors...Heather Anderson Melinda Simpkins Cathy Parker Joy Parker Dramaturg...Joy Parker House Manager...Cathy Parker Factotum...Lynn Parker Absent Friends...Kurtis Charleson Tammy Hasting 7

8 Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller s Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway in February The play took only six weeks to write and was an instant sensation, striking a national nerve and resonating throughout the nation and the world. Miller was only thirty-three, but the play immediately established him as one of America s foremost playwrights. The original production of Death of a Salesman was directed by the legendary Elia Kazan, who also directed the stage premieres of Miller s first success, All My Sons, in addition to Tennessee Williams s A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The set designer was Jo Mielziner, whose revolutionary set design allowed Miller to break out of the traditional theatrical confinements of time and space. Mielziner s set used invisible walls and creative lighting to facilitate moving the story back and forth through time and place. It also provided the intimacy the playwright wanted to achieve. Miller subtitled his play Certain Private Conversations because he wanted the audience members to feel that, rather than watching the Lomans, they were eavesdropping on them. Though Mielziner s ground-breaking techniques have become common today, his set for Death of a Salesman remains a standard in all theatre textbooks. To many people, Death of a Salesman seemed the most meaningful and moving statement about American life in years. It is the story of Willy Loman, the salesman of the title - both an individual and a symbol of America. Still considered by many to be the greatest American play ever written, it won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, the Donaldson Award, the Theatre Club Award, and the New York Drama Critics Award. 8

9 There has been much debate about what Death of a Salesman is supposed to signify. Many Americans, given Miller s left-wing sympathies, thought it was Communist propaganda, but the Soviet Union refused to allow the play to be produced. Some called the play a psychological revelation, some social comment, some a tragedy. But whatever it was about, everyone realized that Miller was saying something distressingly important about America. (When the first movie version of Death of a Salesman came out in 1951, the studio included a trailer which explained how exceptional Willy was, how important selling and salesmen were to the nation, and how secure real, ordinary salesmen were - in short, how idiotic the film they had just made was!) Miller himself said that he didn t set out to write a tragedy or anything except the truth as he saw it. That truth for him was his own family and the conflicts and relationships it engendered, and family members were the models for a number of characters in the play. Willy Loman in particular, the dogged defender of business and selling, is based on one of his uncles, a traveling salesman. While the play, then, is about the conflicts of one unique family, it also examines American values, particularly success, material wealth, and the American Dream. As such, Death of a Salesman, despite being fixed in time (just after World War II) and place (New York and New England), has retained its relevance. People still struggle to fit in, still crave respect, still define themselves through their jobs, still feel lost and alone in the world around them. And we are perhaps even more obsessed today with money and good looks. Sixty years after it was written, Death of a Salesman remains a national mirror in which to see ourselves. 9

10 About Calhoun Theatre Calhoun Community College Theatre is an accredited, two-year program offering an associate s degree in Theatre. Courses may also be taken as electives by non-majors. You'll find our graduates in four-year institutions, graduate schools, and the professional ranks of stage and film. But, we are just as proud of those who have pursued other fields, for we believe that theatrical training, with its emphasis on teamwork, preparation, and presentation, teaches and motivates students to excel in any career. Calhoun Theatre produces three plays annually, including one by Shakespeare. Our goals have always been to produce the highest quality plays; to give each of our students the opportunity to participate; and to entertain and educate our audiences, especially students in middle school, high school, and college. Our Shakespeare for Schools and Theatre Outreach programs offer special performances for schools, senior citizens, and other groups in the Calhoun service area. We also provide learning and teaching aids, lectures, and discussion groups. All Calhoun plays are presented in our Black Box Theatre. Although this unique performing space permits a variety of staging configurations, it normally places audience members on opposite sides of the stage, thereby offering the intimacy of theatre-in-the-round while retaining full set-building capability. A play at Calhoun is an experience like no other. 10

11 Thank You! Thanks to the many friends and supporters of Calhoun Theatre, with special acknowledgement to Calhoun Humanities Division Calhoun Printing Services Calhoun Public Relations Jimmy Cantrell Michael Conyers Terri and James Flowers Nancy Keenum Harry Moore Kim Parker Lynn Parker Will Parker Amanda Prater Robin Self Weddings - Portraiture - Commercial-Sports Website Info@InnovativeImaging.biz Ardmore, AL 11

12 C O M I N G I N A P R I L TO THE BLACK BOX AN HOUR OF SHORT PLAYS April 15 and 16 at 1:00 p.m. April 17 at 7:00 p.m. SINNERS AND SAINTS: THE WOMEN I KNOW April 18 and 19 at 7:00 p.m. April 20 at 2:00 p.m.