60 free Arthur Miller trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Arthur Miller wrote some of the most performed plays in the English language, and this trivia quiz covers all of them. Death of a Salesman gets the deepest treatment: Willy Loman, the Boston hotel room, the Morosco Theatre premiere, the 742-performance run and the play's unprecedented sweep of the Pulitzer, Tony and Drama Critics' Circle awards. The Crucible, All My Sons, A View from the Bridge, The Price, After the Fall, Incident at Vichy and Broken Glass all appear too, along with the four-performance flop that nearly ended his career. The life questions are just as rich: the Brooklyn boyhood after the 1929 crash, the University of Michigan prizes, the feud with Elia Kazan, the 1956 HUAC hearing and contempt conviction, the marriage to Marilyn Monroe and the screenplay for The Misfits, the long partnership with photographer Inge Morath and the son-in-law who played John Proctor. Difficulty runs from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Miller and his individual works, and each question links to its source. Try our Tennessee Williams and Broadway Musicals quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which part of New York City was Arthur Miller born in 1915?
Harlem
His father ran a women's clothing business with 400 employees until the 1929 crash wiped the family out.
Q 02After the 1929 crash, Miller's family moved to which borough, later the setting for Death of a Salesman?
Brooklyn
As a teenager he delivered bread every morning before school to help out.
Q 03Where did Miller study, winning the Avery Hopwood Award for his first play, No Villain?
The University of Michigan
He later gave his name to the university's Arthur Miller Theatre, the only theatre in the world named for him.
Q 04Miller was exempt from military service in World War II because of an old high-school injury to what?
His left kneecap
He worked in a navy yard instead while writing radio plays for CBS.
Q 05Miller's first Broadway play, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), closed after how many shows?
Four
He vowed to find another line of work if his next play, All My Sons, failed too.
Q 06What is the profession of David Beeves, the improbably lucky hero of The Man Who Had All the Luck?
Auto mechanic
The whole first act takes place in the barn that doubles as his repair shop.
Q 07All My Sons was based on a wartime engine scandal Miller's mother-in-law spotted in a newspaper from which state?
Ohio
The Wright Aeronautical Corporation had conspired with army inspectors to pass faulty engines in 1941-43.
Q 08In All My Sons, Joe Keller's defective cylinder heads caused how many P-40 fighters to crash?
21
He let his partner and neighbour Steve Deever take the blame and the prison sentence.
Q 09Which Ibsen play gave Miller the All My Sons idea of one partner forced to take the blame for the other?
The Wild Duck
Miller also borrowed from Ibsen the notion of a character's idealism being the root of the problem.
Q 10Which New York Times critic's positive review did Miller credit with saving All My Sons from failure?
Brooks Atkinson
Most critics, Miller said, saw it as "a very depressing play in a time of great optimism".
Q 11Miller wrote Act I of Death of a Salesman in under a day in which Connecticut town?
Roxbury
He finished the rest within six weeks and died at his home there in 2005.
Q 12Death of a Salesman premiered on 10 February 1949 at which Broadway house?
The Morosco
The Willy Loman of that first production went on to a long screen career; the director would later become Miller's bitter ex-friend.
Q 13Who created the role of Willy Loman in the original Broadway production?
Lee J. Cobb
Mildred Dunnock played Linda, Arthur Kennedy was Biff and Cameron Mitchell was Happy.
Q 21Who played Willy Loman in the 1985 CBS television film that drew 25 million viewers?
Dustin Hoffman
John Malkovich played Biff and Volker Schlöndorff directed; it earned ten Emmy nominations.
Q 22Which actor starred as Willy Loman in the 1999 Broadway revival marking the play's 50th anniversary?
Brian Dennehy
It ran 274 performances at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and won the Tony for Best Revival.
Q 23In 1983 Miller went abroad to direct Death of a Salesman at the People's Art Theatre in which city?
Beijing
His book about the experience, Salesman in Beijing, came out the next year.
Q 14How many performances did the original run of Death of a Salesman play?
742
It closed on 18 November 1950.
Q 15Death of a Salesman was the first play to win which three honours together?
The Pulitzer, the Tony and the Drama Critics' Circle Award
Miller's Tony was for Best Author.
Q 16In which city's theatre lobby did Miller run into his uncle Manny Newman, sparking Death of a Salesman?
Boston
Without even greeting his nephew, Manny announced "Buddy is doing very well."
Q 17What is the subtitle of Death of a Salesman?
Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem
"The Inside of His Head" was Miller's working title, reflecting the montage of memories and dreams.
Q 18Which character in Death of a Salesman did Miller say he modelled on himself as a young man?
Bernard
Bernard, the studious neighbour's boy, grows up to argue a case before the Supreme Court.
Q 19How old is Biff Loman when the play takes place?
34
His father has also served the Wagner Company for 34 years when he is fired.
Q 20What is the name of the restaurant where Willy, Biff and Happy meet for their disastrous dinner?
Frank's Chop House
Willy retreats to the bathroom there and slips into the hotel-room flashback that explains Biff's collapse.
Q 24The Crucible dramatises witch trials held in which year?
1692
Miller researched them in Salem after a close friend named names to HUAC in 1952.
Q 25The Crucible opened on Broadway on 22 January 1953 at which venue?
The Martin Beck
Miller found the production too cold and stylised, but it still won the Tony for Best Play.
Q 26How was The Crucible generally regarded when it first opened in 1953?
Only somewhat successful
It has since become his most frequently produced work worldwide.
Q 27In The Crucible, what does Reverend Parris discover the girls and his slave Tituba doing in the forest?
Dancing
His niece Abigail insists it was only dancing, not witchcraft.
Q 28In The Crucible, what does the court find inside the poppet Mary Warren gave to Elizabeth Proctor?
A needle
Abigail had stabbed herself to frame Elizabeth for witchcraft.
Q 29In The Crucible, what does Deputy Governor Danforth reveal to John Proctor about Elizabeth in Act Three?
She is pregnant
He promises to spare her for a year on that account, hoping Proctor will drop his case.
Q 30Which composer turned The Crucible into an opera in 1961?
Robert Ward
Robert Ward's opera won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.