Death of a Salesman was all but an instant classic when the show premiered at the now-demolished Morosco Theatre on Broadway. Opening night was on February 10, 1949, and after rave reviews, the show ran for 742 performances in just under two years. Miller himself was heavily involved in the production: Jo Mielziner designed the sets and lighting to his precise specifications. In his vision, the walls of the Loman house were transparent, and you'd know whether a scene took place in the present or the past depending on whether the characters were walking through or around the walls. Miller also wanted softer, warmer lighting for scenes in the past than in the present.

One way the production differed from his vision, however, was in its lead casting. Miller envisioned Willy as a physically small man, to emphasize the large weight of the world and his failings on him. But every auditioner besides Lee J. Cobb, the burly man who was eventually cast, "seemed to lack the size of the character, even if they fit the body," Miller wrote in his autobiography Timebends. He and director Elia Kazan — yes, the Hollywood legend — called Cobb the "walrus" and eventually added that descriptor into the script.

Miller wasn't sold on the casting at first, complaining that Cobb's delivery was more reserved than everyone else's in rehearsal. But as the story goes, Cobb suddenly came out of his shell one day, and his performance "clicked" for everyone in the room.

In the years since, Cobb's grand performance has become iconic, influencing all the Willys that have come after him. Kazan's vision and Mielziner's set have done the same, as has the incidental score by Alex North, which multiple revivals reused.

Though Death of a Salesman was a success on Broadway — winning six Tony Awards including Best Play, Best Director, and Best Author, as well as the Pulitzer Prize — the film adaptation didn't do as well a year later. It was a critical hit, but not an audience one; at a time of post-World War II prosperity and hope, film audiences weren't keen on seeing a story about a working American's failure.

For the first Death of a Salesman revival in 1975, George C. Scott got the production's sole Tony nomination for starring as Willy. He also got high critical praise: a New York Times review reads, "Mr. Scott dares — he dares anything and everything, like both bull and bullfighter in an arena. [...] Wtih his raspy voice, and his face fixed in some horrid rictus of grinning despair, Mr. Scott gives us an unforgettable portrait of a man whose dream has failed."

Death of a Salesman held up more of a mirror to American society in 1975 than it did in 1949. America was coming off a war victory and entering a prosperous economic era in 1949, but in 1975, America had just lost the Vietnam War, and a recession was imminent. Miller's play questioned the American dream at a time when many real-life Americans were doing the same.

Dustin Hoffman led the second revival of Death of a Salesman in 1984. Coincidentally, the Broadway run ended on November 18 of that year, the same day the 1949 premiere run ended. It began over a month later, though, on March 21, 1984 rather than February 10.

This Death of a Salesman called back to the original in a few other ways, too; namely, the use of Alex North's score of incidental music, and the casting of Hoffman. Cobb and Scott were large men, but Hoffman was smaller and wiry, as Miller originally intended. Miller changed the "walrus" descriptor of Willy's size, which he added into the script for Cobb, to "shrimp" for this production, and added back other size descriptors he took out in 1949.

The production won the Best Revival (then called Best Reproduction) Tony Award and the Outstanding Revival Drama Desk Award. Kate Reid (Linda), John Malkovich (in his Broadway debut as Biff), and Stephen Lang (Happy) rounded out the immediate Loman family.

In 1985, all four actors (including Hoffman) would reprise their roles in a Death of a Salesman TV movie. After Hoffman and Malkovich won Drama Desk Awards for their Broadway performances, they won Emmy Awards for their screen performances. Hoffman also nabbed a Golden Globe.

This Broadway revival was the 50th-anniversary production of Death of a Salesman. The run opened February 10, 1999, 50 years to the day after the 1949 premiere, and it once again won the Best Revival Tony.

The production was decidedly modern in certain ways, with a jazz score and a revolving set. Elizabeth Franz also brought new depth to the character of Linda, playing her as strong and angry about Willy's delusions rather than as a demure doormat who bends to him. Miller, who was rather married to Kazan's original production, saw this revival. He later told the LA Times, "This [revival] is a revelation. I learned one thing: Thank God, there is more than one viable way to do this play."

Brian Dennehy starred in Death of a Salesman in 1999. He was the first Broadway Willy to match his character's age description; Dennehy was 61 when he played the 63-year-old role, while the actors before him were in their 40s.

Like Hoffman and his 1984 co-stars, Dennehy, alongside fellow Broadway cast members Franz, Ted Koch (Happy), and Howard Witt (Charley), reprised their roles in a film adaptation the next year. Dennehy won a Tony Award and a Golden Globe Award for his respective performances, and Franz also won a Tony.

The fourth Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman boasted a star-studded cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman leading the show as Willy Loman. In a 2012 NPR interview, Hoffman said, for him, the play "really seeps into why we're here. What are we doing? Family, work, friends, hopes, dreams, careers; what's happiness? What's success? What does it mean? Is it important? How do you get it?" While his performance earned Hoffman his third Tony nomination (he got one for all three of his Broadway shows), playing the tormented role also took a toll on him toward the end of his life.

Death of a Salesman ended up being Hoffman's last Broadway production, whereas it was the debut of another actor: Andrew Garfield, who played Willy's son Biff. This play jumpstarted Garfield's New York stage career; he got a Tony nomination for his performance, and he later won for starring in Angels in America in 2018.

This revival combined old with new, design-wise. Director Mike Nichols has said that seeing the original Death of a Salesman in 1949 made him fall in love with theatre, so as a testament, his revival reused both Alex North's score and Jo Mielziner's set design from that production. These elements were presented alongside an updated cast, costumes, and lights, but the production had a similar look and feel to what the show's first audiences likely watched. A New York Times review of the 2012 production notes, "It's a beautiful, lyrical, ghostly vision — appropriate to a play in which an idealized past haunts an unforgiving present."

The 2022 revival of Death of a Salesman is a transfer of a London production that premiered in 2019. The Wire star Wendell Pierce and Caroline, or Change Tony nominee Sharon D. Clarke first played the Lomans at London's Young Vic, and they received such high praise that the show moved to the Piccadilly Theatre in the West End later that year. (Think an Off-Broadway production moving to Broadway.)

After the pair got rave reviews once again, it was announced that Pierce and Clarke would reprise their roles in New York, marking the first Death of a Salesman Broadway production with a Black Loman family.

As Pierce noted in an interview with the Evening Standard, "great danger, violence, oppressive attitudes, subtle humiliations were part of daily life for an African American family" in 1940s New York, where the show is set. A New York Times review similarly reads, "Willy is a black man in a nation where white is the color of success." The casting thus adds a new layer to Miller's work — another reason why Willy has failed to achieve the American dream he's toiled for.

The London production fulfilled Pierce's 40-year dream of performing on the London stage, and the New York production marked his first return to Broadway performing since Serious Money in 1988. (He's produced a few Broadway shows in between.) Clarke, meanwhile, has had a decades-long, three-time Olivier-winning London career, but she only made her Broadway debut with Caroline in 2021 and came back for Salesman less than a year later.

Like the 1975 production, the 2026 Death of a Salesman revival arrives at a time of economic and sociopolitical uncertainty in the U.S. It also joins productions like the fall 2025 revival of Ragtime that question the accessibility and the meaning of the American dream.

Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott, and Ben Ahlers play the Lomans in this Broadway revival — which comes a mere four years after the most recent one. More details about the style of this production, directed by Joe Mantello, have yet to be revealed, but the play's swift NYC return shows how timeless — and timely — the Lomans' story remains after over 75 years.

Check back for information on Death of a Salesman tickets on New York Theatre Guide.