Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the context of "Death of a Salesman"

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often included on lists of the finest American plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O'Neill is also the only playwright to win four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.

O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, ultimately sliding into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

Frances Goodrich (December 21, 1890 – January 29, 1984) was an American actress, dramatist, and screenwriter, best known for her collaborations with her partner and husband Albert Hackett. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with her husband in 1956 for The Diary of Anne Frank which had premiered the previous year.

Albert Maurice Hackett (February 16, 1900 – March 16, 1995) was an American actor, dramatist and screenwriter most noted for his collaborations with his partner and wife Frances Goodrich. Their film work includes the first three installments in the Thin Man series, It's a Wonderful Life, Easter Parade, Father of the Bride and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Goodrich and Hackett won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for their play The Diary of Anne Frank. They received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Paul Eliot Green (March 17, 1894 – May 4, 1981) was an American playwright whose work includes historical dramas of life in North Carolina during the first decades of the twentieth century. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1927 play, In Abraham's Bosom, which was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1926-1927.

His play The Lost Colony has been regularly produced since 1937 near Manteo, North Carolina, and the historic colony of Roanoke. Its success has resulted in numerous other historical outdoor dramas being produced; his work is still the longest-running.

Long Day's Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956. It is widely regarded as his magnum opus and one of the great American plays of the 20th century. It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama posthumously for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work is openly autobiographical in nature. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.

It has been called the finest work of American theater, by critic Pauline Kael.

Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American actor and writer of plays in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), and A View from the Bridge (1955). He wrote several screenplays, including The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1999.

Of Thee I Sing is a musical with a score by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The musical lampoons American politics; the story concerns John P. Wintergreen, who runs for President of the United States on the "love" platform. When he falls in love with the sensible Mary Turner instead of Diana Devereaux, the beautiful pageant winner selected for him, he gets into political hot water.

The original Broadway production, directed by Kaufman, opened in 1931 and ran for 441 performances, gaining critical and box office success. It has been revived twice on Broadway and in concert stagings in the U.S. and in London. In 1932, Of Thee I Sing was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Hamilton: An American Musical is a sung-and-rapped-through biographical musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the musical covers the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his involvement in the American Revolution and the political history of the early United States. Composed from 2008 to 2015, the music draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes. It casts non-white actors as the Founding Fathers of the United States and other historical figures. Miranda described Hamilton as about "America then, as told by America now".

From its opening, Hamilton received near-universal acclaim. It premiered off-Broadway on February 17, 2015, at the Public Theater in Lower Manhattan, with Miranda playing the role of Alexander Hamilton, where its several-month engagement was sold out. The musical won eight Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical. It then transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, opening on August 6, 2015, where it received uniformly positive reviews and high box office sales. At the 70th Tony Awards, Hamilton received a record-breaking 16 nominations and won 11 awards, including Best Musical. It received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2020, a filmed version of the Broadway production was released on Disney+, followed by a theatrical release in 2025 by Walt Disney Pictures.