DEATH OF A SALESMAN Comes to African-American Shakespeare Company Next Month

The African-American Shakespeare Company will present Arthur Miller’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesmen for six performances only at the Taube Auditorium. 
 
While the focus in this production remains on life of Willy Loman, the weary traveling salesman on the brink of obscurity struggling to capture the American Dream, this version features Willy as an African-American man married to a Latina living in Brooklyn in the mid 1950s. “This role has been on my bucket list for years,” says Callender. “But I never thought I was ready to take it on until now. It terrifies me. But at this point in my career, why play a role that doesn't?”
 
Describing the play as “massive” and “the quintessential American classic,” Callender says so many actors find it daunting not only because of its importance to the canon, but “just the size of the damn thing! In my pre-rehearsal preparation, it is all I think about. Willy's journey has to become the breakfast lunch and dinner of the actors' thoughts. It is a marathon with so many varied twists and turns, uphill climbs and downhill tumbles that the actor must be physically and mentally ready for all of it. It's not for the faint of heart.”
 
Callender also notes that in some essential way, “actors are salesmen. We find ourselves constantly maneuvering through the world with something to offer, albeit something human and artistic, and perhaps this is part of what draws actors to the role, but in the end it is the epic and particulary American journey of the Loman family that matters.”