Growing up in Philadelphia, I had from childhood heard the story about the pre-Broadway opening of “Death of a Salesman” in 1949. A hushed silence filled the Locust Street Theatre as the curtain fell.

After a prizewinning “Fiddler on the Roof” and a lauded take on Sondheim, Jordan Fein is tackling Arthur Miller’s enigmatic “Broken Glass.” By Andrew Dickson Rare recordings of E.E. Cummings, Mary ...