{"id":2501859,"date":"2026-07-14T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2501859"},"modified":"2026-07-14T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:56:08","slug":"remembering-josh-grisetti-a-musical-comedy-original-who-deserved-a-bigger-broadway-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/remembering-josh-grisetti-a-musical-comedy-original-who-deserved-a-bigger-broadway-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Josh Grisetti, a musical-comedy original who deserved a bigger Broadway spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

In an alternate Broadway history, \u201cEnter Laughing,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\n

That history never came to pass. But anyone fortunate enough to see Grisetti play David Kolowitz knows how easily it might have.\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

Television audiences may recognize him as comedy writer Ralph Emerson in the fifth and final season of \u201cThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.\u201d In recent years, he also increasingly devoted himself to teaching musical theatre at California State University, Fullerton.<\/p>\n

For me, however, Grisetti will always be inseparable from \u201cEnter Laughing: The Musical.\u201d With a book by Joseph Stein and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, the show was adapted from Stein\u2019s play, itself based on Carl Reiner\u2019s semi-autobiographical novel. It follows David, a spectacularly na\u00efve young man whose theatrical ambitions culminate in a calamitous stage debut.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In total, I saw Grisetti in \u201cEnter Laughing\u201d six times. I wish I had seen it six more.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Josh Grisetti as seen in \u201cTomfoolery.\u201d<\/span>Photo by Ben Strothmann<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Yet the performance was never merely an exhibition of technique. Grisetti understood that David\u2019s ambitions, however unrealistic, were entirely real to him. He exposed the character\u2019s foolishness without sacrificing his dignity, allowing audiences to laugh at every catastrophe while remaining invested in his dream.<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

When the York remounted \u201cEnter Laughing\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Grisetti was supposed to make his Broadway debut in 2009 as the adult Eugene in David Cromer\u2019s revival of Neil Simon\u2019s \u201cBroadway Bound.\u201d But the production was canceled before its first preview after \u201cBrighton Beach Memoirs,\u201d which was intended to run in repertory with \u201cBroadway Bound,\u201d abruptly closed amid weak ticket sales.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/a>
Josh Grisetti (left) as seen in \u201cSomething Rotten\u201d at the St. James Theatre.<\/span>Photo by Joan Marcus<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He finally reached Broadway in 2015 in \u201cIt Shoulda Been You.\u201d The show gave its exceptional cast too little to work with, but Grisetti made every available comic opportunity count.<\/p>\n

He later joined the Shakespeare-themed musical comedy \u201cSomething Rotten!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

I also heard him sing the role of J. Pierrepont Finch in a 2016 concert presentation of \u201cHow to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

I wish I could see Josh Grisetti again in \u201cEnter Laughing,\u201d or in \u201cHow to Succeed,\u201d or in just about anything. More than that, I wish I had told him that his performance in \u201cEnter Laughing\u201d has stayed with me for nearly two decades and remains one of the finest things I have ever seen on a New York stage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.amny.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an alternate Broadway history, \u201cEnter Laughing,\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2501860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[492402,493022,24047],"class_list":["post-2501859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-josh-grisetti","tag-josh-grisetti-obituary","tag-theater"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Remembering-Josh-Grisetti-a-musical-comedy-original-who-deserved-a-bigger.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501861,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501859\/revisions\/2501861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2501860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}