Gordon Greenberg

Gordon Greenberg is an American stage director, theater and television writer, and book writer born in 1969 in Fort Worth, Texas. He serves as an Artistic Associate at The New Group and as artistic director of the Broadway Teachers Workshop. His training includes Stanford University, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Film School, the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and Stagedoor Manor.

Before establishing himself as a director and writer, Greenberg worked as an actor. His Broadway performing credits include How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Grease, and The Little Prince and the Aviator, with his Broadway debut occurring in 1995. His Off-Broadway acting work encompassed productions of Peacetime, Names, City Suite, and Show Me Where the Good Times Are. On television he appeared in Shaky Ground, Knots Landing, Living Single, and Step By Step, and on film in New York City Serenade, directed by Frank Whaley.

Greenberg directed the Broadway adaptation of Holiday Inn, The New Irving Berlin Musical, co-writing the book with Chad Hodge. The production was presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company and Universal Pictures Stage Productions. He also directed the Huey Lewis-inspired Broadway musical The Heart of Rock & Roll at the James Earl Jones Theatre. Earlier in his career, from 1991 to 1993, he produced and directed commercials for J. Walter Thompson, and from 1997 to 2000 he served as artistic director of Musical Theatre Works in New York City.

Among his most recognized directing work is a revival of Guys and Dolls that premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre before transferring to London's West End, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre and subsequently the Phoenix Theatre, starring Rebel Wilson. The production received six Olivier Award nominations, including Best Revival. Greenberg also directed and adapted a revised production of Working, co-adapted with composers Stephen Schwartz and Lin-Manuel Miranda, which played Broadway in Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, the 59 E 59 Theatre in New York, the Old Globe in San Diego, and Asolo Repertory Theatre. That production received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performances and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Revival.

His revival of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which he revised and directed, earned Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama League nominations for Best Revival of a Musical. He directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Geffen Playhouse, starring Calista Flockhart and Zachary Quinto, a production that won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Revival and received six L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award nominations, including Best Director. He directed the American premiere of Piaf/Dietrich, A Legendary Affair for Mirvish in Toronto, a production that was extended three times, received seven Dora Award nominations, and won the Dora Award for Outstanding Production, Musical Theatre.

Greenberg co-wrote and directed Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors! with Steve Rosen, which played Off-Broadway at New World Stages and was subsequently recorded as a radio play with a cast that included John Stamos, Laura Benanti, Annaleigh Ashford, Alex Brightman, Ashley Park, James Monroe Iglehart, Christopher Sieber, Richard Kind, and Rob McClure. He and Rosen also wrote Crime & Punishment, A Comedy, commissioned by the Old Globe Theatre, which Greenberg directed in its 2023 world premiere. He adapted and directed The Secret of My Success, a musical based on the 1987 film, for Universal Pictures, with its pre-Broadway tryout at the Paramount Theatre cut short in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of performance venues in Illinois.

His additional directing credits include Floyd Collins for Signature Theatre, Johnny Baseball at Williamstown Theatre Festival, a workshop of a revised Rags for Roundabout Theatre Company, 1776 for Paper Mill Playhouse, a critically acclaimed production of The Baker's Wife at Paper Mill Playhouse starring Alice Ripley, the U.S. national tour of Guys and Dolls, the U.S. national tour of Happy Days, the U.S. national tour of Peter Pan, Stars of David based on Abby Pogrebin's book for producer Daryl Roth, Farewell My Concubine in China, We The People: America Rocks at the Off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater, 33 Variations, Half a Sixpence, a South African-inspired production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and a new stage adaptation of Tangled for Disney. He co-wrote and directed Band Geeks for Goodspeed Musicals, supported by grants from the NEA and NAMT, and worked with Kirsten Childs on Disney's Believe for Disney Creative Entertainment. He also directed the launch show for the Disney Fantasy, featuring Neil Patrick Harris and Jerry Seinfeld, and wrote original movie musicals for Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, titled Emerald City Music Hall and Scramble Band respectively, both co-written with Michael Weiner.

For television, Greenberg co-wrote and served as Co-Executive Producer on Most Talkative, a comedy series for NBC and Blumhouse co-written with Michael Weiner, based on Andy Cohen's coming-of-age experiences in St. Louis. Among his current projects, he is writing a new musical about Pablo Picasso with Stephen Schwartz and Caridad Svich for Antonio Banderas, and co-writing a musical about Harry Houdini with composer Frank Wildhorn. He is also the writer of The Single Girls Guide, a new musical updating Jane Austen's Emma to 1960s New York in the world of Helen Gurley Brown, developed at Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Ars Nova, Goodspeed Musicals, ASCAP, Capital Rep, and NAMT.