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Paul Libin has produced plays on and off Broadway for almost 60 years. For more than a quarter century, he was the producing director of Circle in the Square, collaborating with its artistic director, Theodore Mann, to bring the best of the classics to Broadway and Off-Broadway. Since 1990, he has been producing director for Jujamcyn Theaters. He was also the president of the League of OffBroadway Theatres and Producers and now is the president of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and president of the Circle in the Square Theatre School. Libin had significant roles in producing the 1958 New York revival of The Crucible, a production that cemented the play's critical reputation, and the 1975 New York revival of Death of a Salesman that starred George C. Scott as Willy Loman. Libin received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in June 2013.
Iskritsa Ognianova: Mr. Libin, you said in an interview in June 2013 that seeing a production of Death of a Salesman in Chicago in 1950 when you were 19 sparked your interest in becoming an actor. What was it about that play, that production, that so inspired you?
Paul Libin: Sure. I was on a double date in Chicago with a friend. I have no memory why we chose to go see Death of a Salesman. I may have read about it, I didn't know much more about it. It was at the Airline Theater in Chicago. The actor who played Willy Loman was Thomas Mitchell. As this play unraveled before me, I was just so overwhelmed by the content of the play, the ideas of the play and the characters in the play. I just was speechless. When the performance came to an end, the curtain calls were taken and we applauded the production. I remember we went downstairs to the front of the theater; my friend went to get his father's car that he borrowed for the evening.
I was a college student at that time. I saw a little theater up to that time, but I was certainly not a regular; it was not my interest. My ambition at that time was to study international relations, I was at the University of Illinois and my plan was...I hoped that I...