Arthur Miller's classic 'All My Sons' opens Palm Beach Dramaworks' newest season. (Photo by ALICIA DOWNLAN)

Throughout its 12-year existence, Palm Beach Dramaworks has had to defer producing many plays that fit its mission of doing American classics, but did not fit its theater. Either the cast size or the scenic requirements were too large or, in the case of the opening play in its new theater, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, the emotions cried out for more breathing room.

As the company’s resident director J. Barry Lewis says of the 1947 family drama, Miller’s first commercial success on Broadway, "The events that take place are powerful events. They’re almost Greek in their strokes. He deals with what our responsibilities are to ourselves, to our family, to our community.

"On the surface, this seems to be about a family in trouble, but ultimately it’s about much more. Because it is about our ideologies, what we believe in and what we stand for."

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Like many of Miller’s plays, the central family in All My Sons is headed by a morally flawed patriarch. Joe Keller is an airplane parts manufacturer who profited from World War II, but whose shoddy goods led to the death of 21 pilots and, perhaps, a human loss closer to home.

Long on producing artistic director Bill Hayes’ wish list, the play will open the company’s new roomier Don & Ann Brown Theatre Saturday evening. "There are simply some works that I, as a director, think need breadth," says Lewis. ‘Because of the grand scale of the work, the sheer scope of the issues, the themes that are involved."

Although it was written more than 60 years ago, Lewis believes that theatergoers will find startling parallels to today, Still, he says, "We are doing it absolutely the way it was written on the page, and letting the audience make its own correlations. Whether it be into the (Bernard) Madoff scenario, whether to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are always looking at how we take responsibility for who we are. These are timeless themes."

Get out your checkbooks . . . If you are on the Caldwell Theatre Co.’s electronic mailing list or if you have attended its current production of Amy Herzog’s After the Revolution, you have probably received the Boca Raton troupe’s public appeal for money. As the letter signed by artistic director Clive Cholerton puts it, "We are at a crucial point where we must raise $100,000."

With reports circulating about the Caldwell being behind on payments to some of its vendors, as well as on the mortgage for its theater, the question becomes how dire is this new fundraising appeal?

"We heard that, too," says Cholerton. "People going, ‘Oh, my god, how desperate is it?’ No, not at all." Yes, the Caldwell has debts, but this alarming cry for help is just a version of the group’s standard year-end appeal. "It was an aggressive number that we thought would just be great to have. God knows we need it."

Cholerton insists that the Caldwell is not in jeopardy of going under. "We’re not in any imminent danger of going away," he emphasizes. "We’re not ‘Florida Staging’ it," a reference to the West Palm Beach company that suddenly declared bankruptcy in June. "We are surviving, we are making it, but just barely and this would really help us."

There is good news from the Caldwell. In July, it received a complete mortgage modification from its bank that lowers the group’s monthly payment by one-third. And it has already gotten $60,000 from the current appeal, including a sizable donation from the developer who is back at work building a parking garage for theater patrons.

So if you were considering a gift to the Caldwell this year, you need not wait for the holidays. Why should theatergoers give? "Because what you’ve seen in the last year is what we’re going to continue to build on," says Cholerton. "That’s what seems to be resonating for people, and it’s only going to get better."

If you go:

ALL MY SONS, Palm Beach Dramaworks at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre, 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Saturday through Dec. 11. Tickets: $55. Call: (561) 514-4042.