Arthur Miller's After the Fall

...premiered in New York City in 1964, as the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater's opening production.

The play was directed by Elia Kazan, the country's top director at the time; it starred Jason Robards, Jr. and Barbara Loden. The production was complicated by numerous events and circumstances:

• Miller was still writing the second act when rehearsals started.
• Though he initially denied it, After the Fall was obviously autobiographical, focusing on Miller's marriages, including that to Marilyn Monroe, who had just died a year earlier.
• This was Miller's and Kazan's first time working together since their falling out ten years earlier after Kazan chose to "name names" at the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
• Kazan had had a year-long affair with Marilyn Monroe before introducing her to Miller.
• When rehearsals started, Barbara Loden (who played the character based on Monroe) had just given birth to Kazan's baby.
• Kazan's wife and mother of their four children died of an aneurism during the last month of rehearsals.
• President Kennedy's assissination took an emotional toll on rehearsals.
• Construction of Lincoln Center's Beaumont Theater fell behind and a "temporary" theater had to be built to house the Repertory's first two years' productions.

Richard Meyer's book, Making the Fall, documents the Repertory Theater's opening year from the personal perspective of a company member.