April 29th, 2026 — Civitella Ranieri is delighted to share Jeremy Tiang’s (CRF 2024) Obie Award-winning play Salesman之死 continues to gain international attention ahead of its new staging at the 2026 Singapore International Festival of Arts. The play, written in both English and Mandarin and inspired by Arthur Miller’s 1983 production of Death of a Salesman in Beijing, centers not on Miller himself, but on Shen Huihui, the interpreter tasked with bridging linguistic and cultural divides during the historic Beijing production. Drawing from real events, the play explores translation, miscommunication, and the unexpected forms of understanding that emerge through artistic collaboration.
Originally premiering Off-Broadway in 2023 at New York’s Connelly Theater, Salesman之死 received the 2025 Obie Award for Outstanding New Play. Obie judges praised the work for capturing “how, even when some words don’t completely translate, there is still a universal bond that can be brought out through art.”
Jeremy is an acclaimed playwright, novelist, and translator whose work frequently moves between languages, histories, and geographies. Alongside his award-winning literary translations, including most recently Women, Seated, and his fiction, Salesman之死 reflects his ongoing interest in the complexities of cross-cultural exchange and the possibilities of multilingual storytelling.