Huntington Kicks Off 2010
With Arthur Miller's Classic
"All My Sons"

The Huntington Theatre Company will begin the New Year with the Tony Award-winning classic "All My Sons," Arthur Miller’s powerful story of family relationships, personal responsibility, and the quest for the American Dream.

David Esbjornson, director of the premieres of Miller’s last two plays ("The Ride Down Mt. Morgan" and "Resurrection Blues"), joins the Huntington to direct Miller’s first hit. Performance dates are January 8 – February 7, 2010.

The production will feature acclaimed Boston actors Will Lyman as family patriarch Joe Keller and Karen MacDonald as his wife Kate. The cast also includes: Lee Aaron Rosen, Diane Davis, Stephanie DiMaggio, Owen Doyle, Ken Cheeseman, Dee Nelson, Michael Tisdale, Andrew Cekala and Spencer Evett.

According to Peter DuBois, the Huntington’s Artistic Director, “David Esbjornson was Arthur Miller’s director of choice late in life, staging the premieres of his last two plays. David’s instincts with Arthur’s language and his characters are extraordinary. He’ll bring a singular perspective to Miller’s earliest masterpiece.”

"All My Sons" is the story of family man and small business owner, Joe Keller, in the years following World War II. Keller continues to strive for the American Dream, despite being shaken by both the public shame of his company’s sale of faulty airplane parts to the government and the personal tragedy of his son who was missing-in-action. His wife Kate is trapped by her grief, while their elder son Chris yearns to move forward. When Chris announces his plan to marry his absent brother’s fiancée, Kate is forced to confront her denial of the war’s fatalities, Chris his father’s moral compromises, and Joe his true responsibilities to his family and to his country.

Esbjornson commented, “One of the reasons the play succeeds is because all of the characters want something desperately. 'All My Sons' is really not about whether someone has done something wrong, but about denial. There are no obvious villains here, just people who are afraid, who have made really bad choices and then tried to run away from them. These characters are each in conflict, caught in a self-made purgatory.”

The themes of the play were extremely important to Miller long after he completed "All My Sons." Esbjornson suggests, “I think Arthur understood that there is nothing more insidious or ultimately more destructive than when patriotism and profit become aligned. That was something that followed him right up until the end of his life. He would visit Washington all the time to make speeches about this and continued to write editorials. He was very active in that way in trying to fight these forces and let people know that these issues were still very much alive.”

Arthur Miller’s plays include "Death of a Salesman," "The Crucible," "A View from the Bridge," "A Memory of Two Mondays," "After the Fall," "Incident at Vichy," "The Price," "The Creation of the World and Other Business," "The Archbishop’s Ceiling," "The American Clock," "Playing for Time," "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," "The Last Yankee," "Broken Glass," "Mr. Peters’ Connections," "Resurrection Blues," and "Finishing the Picture."

His other works include the novel Focus, the film "The Misfits," and the texts for "In Russia, In the Country, and Chinese Encounters," created in collaboration with his wife, photographer Inge Morath. His numerous awards include two New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Tony Awards (including one for Lifetime Achievement), and the Pulitzer Prize.

David Esbjornson worked with Arthur Miller on the playwright's final two premiere productions: "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan" starring Patrick Stewart at The Public Theater and on Broadway, and the world premiere of "Resurrection Blues" at the Guthrie Theater. He is the former artistic director of Seattle Repertory where he directed premieres of Ariel Dorfman’s "Purgatorioi," Kevin Kling’s "How? How? Why? Why?," and the first major revival of Edward Albee’s "The Lady from Dubuque." He has had a long-standing relationship with Edward Albee, directing the Tony Award-winning play "The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?," "The Play about the Baby," and "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

“David is an extraordinary director,” Miller told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2001. “He’s got a strong structural sense and a lovely way with actors – he makes them very confident and gets the best out of them. He also has a strong design sense, which is very important. On the whole, he’s one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with."

For information and tickets, stop by the Huntington box office, call 617-266-0800 or visit www.huntingtontheatre.org.