In an alternate Broadway history, “Enter Laughing,” a musical about a clueless Bronx teenager who dreams of becoming an actor, would have transferred from the York Theatre, become a sleeper hit and established Josh Grisetti as the major stage star he deserved to be.
That history never came to pass. But anyone fortunate enough to see Grisetti play David Kolowitz knows how easily it might have.
Grisetti died by suicide on Friday, July 10. He was 44. Numerous social media tributes from colleagues, friends and former students recalled his extraordinary talent, warmth and generosity.
Television audiences may recognize him as comedy writer Ralph Emerson in the fifth and final season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” In recent years, he also increasingly devoted himself to teaching musical theatre at California State University, Fullerton.
For me, however, Grisetti will always be inseparable from “Enter Laughing: The Musical.” With a book by Joseph Stein and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, the show was adapted from Stein’s play, itself based on Carl Reiner’s semi-autobiographical novel. It follows David, a spectacularly naïve young man whose theatrical ambitions culminate in a calamitous stage debut.
The York rediscovered the musical in 2007 through Musicals in Mufti, its series of minimally staged concert presentations of rarely seen shows. After the Mufti engagement, the York mounted a full Off-Broadway production in 2008 and brought it back in 2009.
In total, I saw Grisetti in “Enter Laughing” six times. I wish I had seen it six more.
Grisetti gave one of the finest musical-comedy performances I have ever seen. His David was guileless, vain, frightened, hormonal and endlessly hopeful. He seemed to move faster than he could think, turning a faltering step or flash of panic into its own perfectly shaped comic event.
Yet the performance was never merely an exhibition of technique. Grisetti understood that David’s ambitions, however unrealistic, were entirely real to him. He exposed the character’s foolishness without sacrificing his dignity, allowing audiences to laugh at every catastrophe while remaining invested in his dream.
The role earned Grisetti a Theatre World Award. A Broadway transfer was announced but never materialized. At least the performance survives on the original cast album.
When the York remounted “Enter Laughing” in 2019 with a new cast, the production did not work. Without Grisetti, much of its charm, momentum and comic invention disappeared. The remount demonstrated just how thoroughly his openness, precision and physical fearlessness had animated the earlier production.
Grisetti was supposed to make his Broadway debut in 2009 as the adult Eugene in David Cromer’s revival of Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound.” But the production was canceled before its first preview after “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” which was intended to run in repertory with “Broadway Bound,” abruptly closed amid weak ticket sales.
He finally reached Broadway in 2015 in “It Shoulda Been You.” The show gave its exceptional cast too little to work with, but Grisetti made every available comic opportunity count.
He later joined the Shakespeare-themed musical comedy “Something Rotten!” as Nigel Bottom, alongside Rob McClure, Leslie Kritzer and Will Chase. His ringing voice, earnest presence and hair-trigger timing helped make the later company, in my view, even stronger than the original.
I also heard him sing the role of J. Pierrepont Finch in a 2016 concert presentation of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” at 54 Below. Like David Kolowitz, Finch was a role originated on Broadway by Robert Morse, and Grisetti was buoyant, sly and completely at home.
I wish I could see Josh Grisetti again in “Enter Laughing,” or in “How to Succeed,” or in just about anything. More than that, I wish I had told him that his performance in “Enter Laughing” has stayed with me for nearly two decades and remains one of the finest things I have ever seen on a New York stage.
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