当我身为戏剧系大一新生时－这个故事已越来越出名－我修了一堂戏剧分析课－这是必修课程之一，指导教授是 Gerardine Clark。如果有人想知道这些欢呼是怎么回事，戏剧系学生坐在那里。戏剧分析课每周上两次，每次九十分钟，每星期得研读两部剧本，每堂课开始时，会举行一场二十题是非题的小考，测验我们是否预习了剧本。问题是，这是早上八点三十分的课，上课地点在East Genesee街尾，我住在Brewster/Boland街 头。不知道你们是否注意到，雪城市的气候经常十分恶劣，我总是得在风雪交加中前往学校上课， 刺骨的寒风简直像从喷射机引擎中喷出似的，这对我的社交生活产生不少负面影响，尤其是睡眠质量。某次小考的内容是关于《推销员之死》，我并未事先预习这出 戏剧，我写出的答案显示，我不知道剧终时那位推销员是不是死了。这门课没有及格。我不得不在大二时重修，这令我十分沮丧、深感羞愧。毫无疑问地，这是我迈向作家之路过程中最刻骨铭心的事。大二时，我孜孜不倦地参与这门课程，用心研读剧本，讨论每一部剧本的架构、节奏、寓意及转折点，反复地 思考探索。我投注了全副心力，确实，当我在期末收到成绩单时，成绩从F进步到D。开个玩笑；这堂课只有过与不过的分别。 (来源：www.EnglishCN.com)

But I stood at the back of the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington watching a pre-Broadway tryout of my plays, knowing that when the curtain came down, I could go back to my hotel room and fix the problem in the second act with the tools that Gerry Clark gave me. Eight years ago, I was introduced to Arthur Miller at a Dramatists Guild function and we spent a good part of the evening talking. A few weeks later when he came down with the flu he called and asked if I could fill in for him as a guest lecturer at NYU. The subject was "Death of a Salesman." You made a good decision coming to school here.

但当我站在华盛顿肯尼迪表演艺术中心的Eisenhower剧场，观看我的剧作在进驻百老汇之前举行的试演时，心里想着，落幕之后，我就能回酒店房间，使用从Gerry Clark（其著作曾改编成著名戏剧）作品学到的技巧，修改第二幕的瑕疵。八年前，阿瑟．米勒（美国传奇剧作家）将我引介给美京剧作家协会，当晚我们相谈 甚欢。几星期后，他罹患流行感冒，打电话问我是否能代替他出席纽约大学的客座演讲，演讲主题正是《推销员之死》。来雪城大学念书确实是明智的选择。

I've made some bad decisions. I lost a decade of my life to cocaine addiction. You know how I got addicted to cocaine? I tried it. The problem with drugs is that they work, right up until the moment that they decimate your life. Try cocaine, and you'll become addicted to it. Become addicted to cocaine, and you will either be dead, or you will wish you were dead, but it will only be one or the other. My big fear was that I wasn't going to be able to write without it. There was no way I was going to be able to write without it. Last year I celebrated my 11-year anniversary of not using coke. Thank you. In that 11 years, I've written three television series, three movies, a Broadway play, won the Academy Award and taught my daughter all the lyrics to "Pirates of Penzance." I have good friends.

我曾误入歧途。因为古柯碱成瘾，浪费了生命中宝贵的十年。你们知道我怎么会染上古柯碱毒瘾吗？我只是试了一口。毒品最大的问题在于它们确实有用，直到摧毁你人生那一刻。只要试一 口，你就万劫不复。一旦染上毒瘾，你不是吸毒而死，就是生不如死，但总是逃不出这两 种悲惨的命运。我最大的恐惧是，没有它我会失去写作灵感，没有它我根本无法写作。上个月我庆祝了戒毒11周年。谢谢。这11年来，我写了三部电视系列影集、三部电影、一出百老汇戏剧、荣获奥斯卡奖，并教会我女儿整出《彭赞斯的海盗》（音乐剧）的歌词。我有许多好朋友。

You'll meet a lot of people who, to put it simply, don't know what they're talking about. In 1970 a CBS executive famously said that there were four things that we would never, ever see on television: a divorced person, a Jewish person, a person living in New York City and a man with a moustache. By 1980, every show on television was about a divorced Jew who lives in New York City and goes on a blind date with Tom Selleck.

你会遇见许多人，简单来说，总是满口胡言。1970年代，CBS将一句名言奉为圭臬：有四种角色绝不可能出现 在电视屏幕上－离婚的人、犹太人、纽约居民和蓄胡男子。到了1980年代，每部电视节目的内容都是描写住在纽约市的离婚犹太人，并和汤姆·谢立克（知名演员，蓄胡）进行盲目约会。

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt. My junior and senior years at Syracuse, I shared a five-bedroom apartment at the top of East Adams with four roommates, one of whom was a fellow theater major named Chris. Chris was a sweet guy with a sly sense of humor and a sunny stage presence. He was born out of his time, and would have felt most at home playing Mickey Rooney's sidekick in "Babes on Broadway." I had subscriptions back then to Time and Newsweek. Chris used to enjoy making fun of what he felt was an odd interest in world events that had nothing to do with the arts. I lost touch with Chris after we graduated and so I'm not quite certain when he died. But I remember about a year and a half after the last time I saw him, I read an article in Newsweek about a virus that was burning its way across the country. The Centers for Disease Control was calling it "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" or AIDS for short. And they were asking the White House for $35 million for research, care and cure. The White House felt that $35 million was way too much money to spend on a disease that was only affecting homosexuals, and they passed. Which I'm sure they wouldn't have done if they'd known that $35 million was a steal compared to the $2 billion it would cost only 10 years later.Am I saying that Chris would be alive today if only he'd read Newsweek? Of course not. But it seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less of each other, and that's got to change. Your friends, your family, this school expect more of you than vocational success.