Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman runs at the York Theatre Royal from Wednesday 24 February to Saturday 27 March 2027, playing in the Main House. It's a new production of Arthur Miller's 1949 play, brought to York as a co-production between the theatre and Glasgow's Citizens Theatre, with Dominic Hill directing.

If you've never seen it, the story follows Willy Loman, a travelling salesman who comes home exhausted after thirty-four years on the road. He's spent his life chasing the American Dream, and the play catches up with him as that dream starts to fray. He's struggling with mounting debts and the weight of his own delusions, while his family has to deal with the fallout of a life spent chasing success. It's a landmark of 20th-century drama, and it's one of those plays that manages to be both a specific portrait of a man and a much wider look at how we measure a life.

Dominic Hill describes this version as timely in the age of "Donald Trump's politics of greed and toxic masculinity," though he's quick to add that it remains an ordinary working man's story about a family wrestling with expectations and forging their own path. One of the play's most famous lines sums up that tension: "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit."

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) was one of the most prolific playwrights of his generation, and Death of a Salesman sits alongside The Crucible and All My Sons as one of his biggest works. This production runs from 24 February to 27 March at the York Theatre Royal Main House.