Jesse Green (theatre critic)

Jesse Green (born June 8, 1958)^[1] is an American journalist who served as the chief theatre critic for The New York Times until 2025, having started that role in 2017 as co-chief with Ben Brantley.^[2] Previously, he was the theatre critic at New York Magazine.^[3]

Jesse Green
Born	(1958-06-08) June 8, 1958 (age 67)
Occupation	Journalist author theatre critic
Education	Yale University (BA)
Spouse	Andrew Mirer
Children	2

Early life

Green was raised in a Jewish family in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, one of two sons born to Rodney and Sally (née Swartz) Green.^[4][5][6][7] He worked on student musicals in high school, acting as Will Parker, Cliff Bradshaw, and Prince Dauntless.^[8] He also attended the arts summer camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts from 1967 to 1974.^[7]

Green graduated from Yale University with a dual major in English and theatre. He worked in the Broadway theater world after graduating college in various roles, including as "apprentice" to Harold Prince in 1982 and "gofer" for John Kander.^[8][9]

Career

The New York Times

Green, who had contributed to The New York Times since 1990, became its co-chief theater critic following the firing of the newspaper's second-string theatre critic, Charles Isherwood, in February 2017.^[7][10][11] At the time of his selections as co-chief critic, Green was noted to disagreed on his colleague Ben Brantley in multiple reviews, including of a revival of The Glass Menagerie.^[12] While Brantley dismissed the production, Green lauded it while at New York magazine.

As the lead critic for the city's largest theater section, Green has faced criticism of perceived gender biases. In 2017, after tepid reviews of their Broadway debuts by Ben Brantley, Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel publicly criticized co-chiefs Green and Brantley as representing patriarchal irrelevancies.^[13]

In 2018, Green was favorably cited as being respectful of trans and non-binary identities following a controversial review of Head over Heels by co-chief critic Brantley.^[14] The Brantley review drew significant criticism—and was later corrected—for dismissing the gender identity of the character portrayed by Ru-Paul's Drag Race contestant Peppermint, who became the first out trans woman to originate a lead role on Broadway.^[15]

A 2021 review of Lauren Gunderson's play "The Catastrophists," was noted for word choice perceived as sexist, including "overwrought" and "difficult, and for unduly focusing on the playwright's personal life—though the play's subject was Gunderson's husband, virologist Nathan Wolfe.^[16][17] In November 2022, actress Tonya Pinkins wrote an open letter to Green, accusing him of "misogynoir" and of misunderstanding the intentions of a reimagining of A Raisin in the Sun at The Public Theater, in which Pinkins played Lena Younger.^[18]

In 2022, the producers of the musical KPOP wrote an open letter to Green and the Times, accusing his negative review of the Broadway production of representing an "implicit assertion of traditional white cultural supremacy."^[19] The major points of contention were Green's negative view of the musical's emphasis on electronica in the score and his use of the phrase "squint-inducing" to describe the lighting design.^[19] The newspaper defended Green's review of KPOP as "fair," rejecting the allegations of racism.^[20] The musical closed on December 11, 2022, after only 17 performances, though the producers denied that the closure was directly related to Green's pan.^[21]

In 2025, the Times announced that Green would be replaced as theatre critic and given a new assignment at the paper.^[22]

Other work

Green is the author of three books. His first, a novel entitled O Beautiful was published in 1992, and his second, a memoir entitled The Velveteen Father, was published in 1999.^[23]

Between her death in 2014 and the book's release in 2022, Green completed and published the memoirs of Mary Rodgers, taken in part from her own writing and from interviews she conducted with Green. Though the book is written in Mary Rodgers's voice, with intercessions from Green limited to footnotes, he is listed as a co-author.^[24]

Personal life

Green is gay and lives in Brooklyn Heights with his husband Andrew Mirer.^[6][25][26] Mirer had adopted a son shortly before he and Green met, and they later adopted a second son.^[27] This is chronicled in Green's 1999 memoir The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood.^[28]

Bibliography

• O Beautiful (1992)^[29]
• The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood (1999)
• Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers (2022) (with Mary Rodgers)