Death of a Salesman

Theater Reading Group: Death of a Salesman

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - 6:00pm to 8:30pm
  • Library Hall

An interactive group reading of Arthur Miller's classic contemporary play, Death of a Salesman.

Led by veteran actor, founder of Steamboat's Great American Laughing Stock Company and Piknik Theater producer Stuart Handloff, this play reading group is for literary fans and aspiring thespians alike.  The emphasis is on enjoyment of Death of a Salesman  -- discussing, reading excerpts together and learning about the playwright and his world. The one-night workshop is designed for participation by everyone.

ABOUT Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play forever changed the meaning of the American Dream and won multiple Tony Awards for the 2012 Broadway production directed by Mike Nichols and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the tragic hero Willy Loman and Andrew Garfield as his son Biff.
 
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 sixty-three, he searches for the moment his life took a wrong turn, the moment of betrayal that undermined his marriage 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.
 
Arthur Miller’s masterpiece has steadily seen productions all over the world since its 1949 debut. As the noted Miller scholar Christopher Bigsby states in his introduction, “If Willy’s is an American dream, it is also a dream shared by all those who are aware of the gap between what they might have been and what they are.”

WANT TO JOIN THE Death of a Salesman  READING GROUP?
The workshop is limited to 25 participants. Everyone is asked to commit to the reading and attend the one-night session. As this is a full evening that runs through the dinner hour, it is suggested that everyone bring a finger-food snack to share with the group.

To sign up, you must contact Adult Programs Coordinator Jennie Lay directly by email or by calling 879-0240 x 317. Once your space is confirmed, further information will follow.

The Library will provide copies of Death of a Salesman  to loan to all participants. It is requested that participants read the play before the workshop on May 22.

A second Theater Reading Group will meet on June 26 to read William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Learn more here.

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About GALSCO
The Great American Laughing Stock Company is a nonprofit summer repertory theatre company in Steamboat Springs, whose mission is to enhance and diversify the performing arts in the Yampa Valley region. GALSCO does theatre outdoors, in a picnic setting, through partnerships with local performers and guest artists from the finest New Zealand conservatories, to build a spirit of community. Community means theatre that touches all ages, abilities, cultures, including genres from Shakespeare to Seuss, and is indelibly printed with the values of the Yampa Valley.

Originally founded in 1971, the Company was resurrected in the summer of 2005 and has continued to produce shows each summer, as well as holding classes and workshops for local middle school and elementary aged students during the school year. Led by Stuart Handloff, a director with 38 years of theatrical experience and a master's degree from the New Zealand National Drama School.