Everyone knows his landmark Death of a Salesman. A half-century after it was written, in our era of downsizing, it continues to speak with astonishing immediacy of the worker who is left bereft without his life's work - or a dream.

Two Miller classics will be revived next month, both opening Oct. 21, not coincidentally timed to the November election.

The Crucible, from 1953, will be staged at Playhouse in the Park. Set during the Salem witch trials, it was Miller's response to the infamous American witch hunt for Communist sympathizers. At Cincinnati Shakespeare, All My Sons, from 1947, uses war profiteering as a jumping-off point for an exploration of the American family and values.

The plays do stand the test of time, says Playhouse in the Park producing artistic director Ed Stern, who quotes a new biography, Arthur Miller. " 'Miller was struck by the fact that a political, objective, knowledgeable campaign from the far right was capable of creating not only a terror, but a new subjective reality, a veritable mystique which was gradually assuming even a holy resonance.' "

"Examining integrity in the face of social hysteria," Stern notes, "is certainly as pointed today as it was slightly over 50 years ago."

"This is the moment," says Cincinnati Shakespeare artistic director Brian Isaac Phillips. "Right now we are facing one of the most important elections in the history of our country.

"Everybody at the festival feels very strongly about this, so we wanted to speak about it through the stage.

"All My Sons is dealing with business profiting from war and the lives of young men and women - our future.

"It's about being betrayed by our elders, whether they be fathers or leaders, and asking us to confront it now, tonight, and start to live stronger lives even though we will be forever changed by facing the truth."

Phillips says that two companies choosing Miller at this particular moment makes him proud to be in Cincinnati.

The choice, he declares, "is proof that people care, audiences and performers alike. This is an important city in an important state in an important election. Add important theater to that mix, and through art we may just change the world."