Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
This 1968 Playbill documents the opening of Arthur Miller's "The Price" at the Morosco Theatre, a production that arrived at a genuinely consequential moment in Miller's career and in American theater more broadly. The Price is a two-act play written in 1967, and Miller himself stated that he wrote it as a response to the Vietnam War and to the avant-garde, absurdist styles that dominated much contemporary playwriting at the time. The play opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on February 7, 1968, with Ulu Grosbard directing an original cast featuring Harold Gary as the antiques dealer Gregory Solomon, Pat Hingle as police sergeant Victor Franz, Kate Reid as Esther Franz, and Arthur Kennedy as Victor's estranged brother Walter Franz. Collectors building an archive of magazines from 1968 will find this Playbill a precise document of one of Miller's most significant later Broadway productions, arriving more than a decade after his major mid-1950s successes and marking a deliberate, considered response to the theatrical and political climate of the late 1960s.
The production's critical reception captured something of the tension between Miller's classical dramatic instincts and the more experimental theatrical currents of the period. New York Times critic Clive Barnes described the play as one of the most engrossing and entertaining works Miller had ever written, praising its superbly theatrical structure and its adherence to the classical unities of time, place, and action, while specifically commending the performances of Pat Hingle, Arthur Kennedy, Kate Reid, and Harold Gary, with Barnes highlighting the central confrontation between the two brothers as a source of genuinely riveting dramatic intensity. The play was nominated for two 1968 Tony Awards, for Best Play and for Boris Aronson's scenic design, though it lost the Best Play award to Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", a result that places this production directly alongside one of the most celebrated new plays of the entire decade in that year's awards competition. For collectors researching the history of Playbills as theatrical memorabilia, an item documenting this specific production captures Miller at a genuinely significant later-career juncture, working in direct, deliberate contrast to the absurdist and avant-garde dramatic trends he found unsatisfying.
This production also enjoyed a substantial and successful run, reflecting strong audience reception even though it fell short of the year's top award. The play ran at the Morosco before transferring to the 46th Street Theatre on November 18, 1968, ultimately closing on February 15, 1969, after a total of 429 performances, a genuinely healthy run for a serious dramatic play of this scope and ambition. The production's significance has only been reinforced by its subsequent stage history: "The Price" has been revived on Broadway four separate times since this original production, confirming the play's lasting place within Miller's body of work and within the broader American dramatic repertoire. A Playbill from this original 1968 staging therefore documents the production against which every subsequent Broadway revival of the play has implicitly been measured.
About the Publication
Playbill has served as the official program publication for Broadway theaters since the early twentieth century, distributed free to audience members at individual performances and containing cast lists, creative team credits, biographical notes on performers, and production-specific feature content. Its format combines practical programming information with editorial material, making individual issues valuable historical records of specific productions, casts, and creative teams at precise moments in time. Because Playbills are issued per-production and per-theater rather than as a continuous editorial publication, individual issues function as dated artifacts permanently tied to a single, specific performance run, a quality that makes original-production Playbills for significant works by major playwrights particularly valuable as primary documentation. This format has made Playbill collecting a distinct branch of theater memorabilia, with collector interest concentrated on productions of major literary, critical, or historical significance, exactly the category into which this original "The Price" Playbill falls given its place in Arthur Miller's broader body of work.
Key Highlights Inside
- Complete original Broadway cast listing, including Harold Gary as Gregory Solomon, Pat Hingle as Victor Franz, Kate Reid as Esther Franz, and Arthur Kennedy as Walter Franz, the four-actor ensemble that anchored Miller's tightly structured family drama.
- Creative team credits for director Ulu Grosbard and scenic and costume designer Boris Aronson, whose work on the production earned a 1968 Tony Award nomination for Best Scenic Design.
- Production credits for producer Robert Whitehead, working in association with Robert W. Dowling, documenting the commercial and creative team responsible for bringing Miller's play to the Morosco stage.
- Context tying this Playbill to a play Miller explicitly wrote as a deliberate counterpoint to the era's prevailing absurdist theatrical trends, reflecting his continued commitment to classically structured, psychologically driven family drama during a period of significant experimentation in American theater.
- Documentation of a production that received two 1968 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, and went on to a healthy 429-performance run before later inspiring four separate Broadway revivals in subsequent decades.
Condition & Rarity
Surviving Playbills from the original 1968 Broadway run of "The Price" are evaluated on completeness of pages, cover condition, and overall legibility of cast and credit listings, criteria that carry particular weight given this production's significance within Arthur Miller's body of dramatic work. This item is described as being in good condition with minor wear, a grading consistent with a Playbill that has survived nearly six decades since its original distribution at the Morosco Theatre. Because Playbills are typically distributed as single-performance keepsakes rather than purchased and read repeatedly, surviving copies in good condition are reasonably attainable for collectors, particularly given this production's substantial 429-performance run, which would have generated a meaningful number of original Playbills across its lengthy engagement.
A protective plastic covering, as included with this item, provides an effective ongoing barrier against further handling wear and environmental exposure, helping preserve a Playbill already noted to be in good condition. Playbills documenting original productions of significant Arthur Miller works draw sustained interest from collectors specializing in American dramatic literature and mid-century Broadway history specifically, a category that extends well beyond general theater memorabilia collecting into more focused literary and theatrical scholarship. Collectors evaluating any surviving copy of this Playbill should prioritize the legibility of the full original cast and creative team listing, given the genuine historical and research significance of this specific production within Miller's broader career.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Playbills documenting original productions of significant Arthur Miller plays, particularly works like "The Price" that occupy a notable place within his later career, are a genuinely worthwhile category for collectors interested in American dramatic literature and mid-century Broadway history. If this particular item is currently unavailable, the Playbill collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most direct resource for collectors tracing Broadway production history across a wide range of shows and eras. The broader 1968 magazine archive is equally worth browsing for anyone building a multi-publication record of that specific year in American theater and culture.