Seth Rudetsky

Seth Dennis Rudetsky was born on February 28, 1967, in Queens, New York, and grew up in North Woodmere, New York. He graduated from Hewlett High School in Hewlett, New York, and earned a degree in Piano Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in 1988. A musician, actor, writer, and radio host, Rudetsky has built a career spanning Broadway performance, book writing, television, and satellite radio.

Rudetsky's Broadway acting credits include the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of The Ritz, in which he appeared from September through December 2007, and Disaster!, which transferred to the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway in 2016. He co-wrote Disaster! with Jack Plotnick, a musical comedy that parodies 1970s disaster films. The show first opened Off-Broadway at the St. Luke's Theatre on November 4, 2013, and ran for three years before reaching Broadway. Prior to its Broadway run, Rudetsky had also written and performed in a one-man show, Rhapsody in Seth, in 2003, and starred in an Off-Off-Broadway production of Torch Song Trilogy from November 27 through December 10, 2006. In January 2008, he appeared in a regional production of Lend Me a Tenor in Northport, Long Island.

As a radio host, Rudetsky presents Seth's Big Fat Broadway and Seth Speaks on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio's On Broadway channel, programs centered on Broadway theatre history and trivia. He also hosts Seth's Broadway Chatterbox, a weekly one-hour talk show held on Thursday evenings at Don't Tell Mama on 46th Street in New York City. From August through December, he hosted Seth Rudetsky's Big Fat Broadway Live!, a monthly Broadway concert series at the Bell Theater in Holmdel, New Jersey, featuring performers including Mandy Gonzalez, Sierra Boggess, Adam Pascal, J Harrison Ghee, and Krysta Rodriguez.

Rudetsky's writing career has extended across television, publishing, and live events. He received three Emmy Award nominations for his work as a comedy writer on The Rosie O'Donnell Show and wrote for the Grammy Award broadcasts in 1999 and 2000. He composed the opening numbers for the 1998 and 2000 Tony Awards and wrote the opening number for seven Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet Competitions, in addition to contributing to numerous Gypsy of the Year shows. His short story "My First Story" appeared in the 2005 anthology Fresh Men 2: New Voice in Gay Fiction. His subsequent publications include The Q Guide to Broadway, published by Alyson Books in 2006; the novel Broadway Nights, also from Alyson Books, released in 2007; and two young adult novels published by Random House — My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan in 2012 and its sequel, The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek, in 2015.

As a musician, Rudetsky has accompanied Patti LuPone in concert, demonstrating a facility for sight transposition, and conducted the orchestra at the November 30, 2007, performance "Light the Lights — Broadway is Back," a celebration marking the end of a Broadway strike. He has also posted video deconstructions of Broadway performers' singing voices on his website, Seth TV, which offered video archives and subscription-based exclusive content.

Rudetsky appeared as a vocal coach on the MTV reality series Legally Blonde: The Musical — The Search for Elle Woods and was a contestant on episode 111 of the US version of Cash Cab in 2007. He appeared in the series finale of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and participated in the 2008 benefit event "Spare Some Change: NYC Artists for Barack Obama," directed by Ryan Mekenian, alongside Shaina Taub, Carrie Manolakos, Joe Iconis, Lindsay Mendez, and Celia Keenan-Bolger. On August 30, 2010, he appeared with Sutton Foster in a one-night-only concert performance of They're Playing Our Song at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

In March 2020, Rudetsky and his husband, producer James Wesley, whom he married in 2012, launched Stars in the House, a daily live-streamed web series created to benefit The Actors Fund during the coronavirus pandemic. The couple have a daughter named Juli. On March 18, 2024, Rudetsky signed an open letter criticizing Jonathan Glazer's acceptance speech at the 96th Academy Awards, in which Glazer had denounced Israel's role in the Gaza war.

Rudetsky's brother, Michael Rudetsky, a keyboardist, guitarist, and writer who had worked with Cyndi Lauper, Kool & the Gang, and Joan Jett, died in 1986 at Boy George's London mansion at the age of 27. The cause was reported as a heroin overdose, though no drug paraphernalia was found at the scene.