America's most distinguished living playwright has been honored once more. The veteran playwright has been given the Japan Art Association's 2001 Praemium Imperiale International Art Award, along with four other recipients.

The Award, to be announced today in Paris, is for lifetime achievement. Such prizes are generally given when the recipient is comfortably retired. Eighty-five year old Miller is not only seeing his early works continually reinterpreted (a production of The Crucible, starring Liam Neeson and directed by Sir Richard Eyre is due to open in New York next spring) however, but has written a new play, Resurrection Blues and a book, On Politics and the Art of Acting.

Miller's continued commercial success in the theatre, with even his earliest work being revived - The Man Who Had All The Luck (1944) is being presented in New York next year, with movie star Chris O'Donnell making his Broadway debut - keeps him at the head of his profession. Only Tennessee Williams offers him real competition for the ultimate prize - greatest American playwright of the twentieth century.

—by Paul Webb Theatrenow