Broadway actor, author, and California State University professor Josh Grisetti died July 10 at the age of 44.
The news of his passing was revealed through Instagram posts shared by his friends and former co-stars Sierra Boggess and Rob McClure, who note that Grisetti died by suicide on Friday morning. He is survived by his wife, Mackenzie Grisetti.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1981, Grisetti grew up in Rocky Mount, Virginia, right outside of Roanoke. He attended high school at North Carolina School of the Arts and graduated with a diploma in drama before attending Boston Conservatory, where he graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre.
Grisetti had a prolific stage career in New York City, earning acclaim and award recognition from his very first appearance Off-Broadway, when he starred in the York Theatre’s 2008 musical adaptation of Enter Laughing. He received the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, and Drama League Award nominations.
Following his breakout success Off-Broadway, Grisetti was set to make his Broadway debut in a revival of Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound directed by David Cromer, starring as Eugene Morris Jerome alongside Laurie Metcalf, Santino Fontana, and Jessica Hecht. The production was cancelled just two weeks ahead of its premiere, but Grisetti found his way to the Broadway stage not long after, playing Mordred in a concert staging of Camelot in 2011.
Grisetti formally made his Broadway debut starring in Brian Hargrove’s musical It Shoulda Been You, originating the role of Marty Kaufman alongside Sierra Boggess, Tyne Daly, Lisa Howard, Montego Glover, and many more. Though the work was met with mixed reception, Grisetti’s performance was universally praised and declared by several critics to be a standout, with Variety’s Marilyn Stasio describing him as a “perfectly wonderful physical actor” and New York Theatre Guide’s Dan Dunlow calling him a “comic genius.” Theatre journalist and critic Raven Snook published an essay in The Theatre Development Fund’s TDF Stages expressing her enthusiasm and support for Grisetti becoming the next big Broadway star, writing that she was “almost as excited about Josh Grisetti’s Broadway debut as he was.” In it, she professes that she had been rallying for Grisetti’s success since his performance in Enter Laughing, where she “immediately fell for Grisetti.” He received nominations from the Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Critics Circle for his performance in It Shoulda Been You, and also won the 2015 Clarence Derwent Award.
Grisetti next appeared on Broadway in the hit musical Something Rotten!, replacing original star John Cariani as Nigel Bottom. He went on to originate the role on the first national tour of the Waye and Karey Kirkpatrick musical, performing across the United States from 2017 through 2018. His most recent stage appearances include starring as Tateh in the 2023 La Mirada Theatre production of Ragtime, and playing Sheldon J. Plankton in Broadway Sacremento’s 2024 staging of SpongeBob Squarepants the Musical. Grisetti was a seasoned performer of La Mirada throughout the past decade, also starring as Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Wormwood in Matilda, and Simeon in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Grisetti has had a handful of television and film appearances, including starring in the ABC sitcom The Knights of Prosperity, as well as the pilots for NBC’s The Gates and Like Magic. He had a recurring role throughout the final season of the critically acclaimed Amazon Prime series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, playing comedy writer Ralph alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Maisel. He was also a published author, with a memoir under his full name, Joshua Steven Grisetti, being published in February 2016. Titled God in my Head: the true story of an ex-Christian who accidentally met God, the novel describes his journey following a Near Death Experience (NDE).
In recent years, Grisetti turned to higher education, and in 2020, he became the first graduate of the MFA in Performance Pedagogy program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. From there, he joined California State University, Fullerton as a professor of Theatre and Dance, achieving tenure just two years later.
Grisetti was instrumental in the redesign of the university’s BFA in Musical Theatre program, and was incredibly passionate about providing hands-on, real world experience-based education to theatre students, as he states in a May 2023 interview: “A lot of schools that offer B.F.A.s have faculty who don’t currently work in the industry, so they’re teaching students about processes that they either remember from the past or may have never experienced firsthand. That creates problems when you are getting people ready for the industry.”
Grisetti’s philosophy and mission as an educator was not confined to the classroom, as over the past several years, he has gained a loyal following on TikTok and Instagram Reels for his content, particularly his videos critiquing BFA programs in American higher education, as well as the predatory cycle of student loans. Grisetti’s videos also offered extensive advice on attending college theatre programs, auditioning, finding work, and much more. When he wasn’t delivering hard-hitting discussions, he shared humorous anecdotes about his career in the theatre—with one story notably recounting a moment he ad-libbed a reference to Patti LuPone in It Shoulda Been You.
On TikTok, Grisetti also often shared video reviews of shows he had recently attended, and fostered nuanced, enlightening conversation with those who watched his content. In both Boggess and McClure’s posts, he is remembered not only for his exceptional talent as a performer, but also for his altruistic approach to the theatre industry—always offering guidance to aspiring artists, questioning harmful and outdated structures, dispelling myths, and encouraging transparency. In her post, Boggess writes: “I loved the way he looked at the world and how he challenged ideals and norms. I loved his humor and his brain and deep, deep philosophical conversations.” McClure shared similar sentiments, describing his passing as a “cataclysmic loss” for the theatre community as a whole, from his students to his peers.
Memorial information is forthcoming. Grisetti’s family has launched a GoFundMe to help with final arrangements.
