Michael Esper

Michael Esper is an American stage actor born on December 1, 1976, in Manhattan and raised in Montclair, New Jersey. He is the son of William and Suzanne Esper, both acting teachers who founded the William Esper Studio. Esper attended Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights before pursuing higher education at Oberlin College for one year, then transferring to Rutgers University.

Esper's Broadway career spans from 2008 to 2026 and includes productions such as Green Day's American Idiot, A Man for All Seasons, The Lyons, Appropriate, The Balusters, and Sting's The Last Ship. His voice appears on American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording. The Last Ship began Broadway previews in September 2014 and ran through January 24, 2015. His performance in Appropriate earned him a 2024 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play.

Off-Broadway, Esper originated roles in several notable productions, including Leslye Headland's Assistance, Nicky Silver's The Lyons, and Tony Kushner's The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. In February 2014, he returned to New York theater after a break from stage work, appearing in David Grimm's Tales from Red Vienna opposite Nina Arianda. He subsequently appeared in David Bowie and Enda Walsh's musical Lazarus at New York Theatre Workshop, and his voice is featured on the Lazarus cast album. That performance earned him a 2016 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination.

Esper's stage work has extended internationally. He appeared in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2016, and the production transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in London, where it ran through April 29, 2017. Among his additional stage credits are Crazy Mary, for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award, as well as Big Bill, subUrbia, Manic Flight Reaction, As You Like It, and The Four of Us.