Ben Brantley

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Ben Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is the chief theatre critic of the New York Times.

Born Benjamin D. Brantley in Durham, North Carolina, Brantley received a B.A. degree in English from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Brantley began his journalism career as a summer intern at the Winston-Salem Sentinel in 1976 and an editorial assistant at The Village Voice in 1975. He was a reporter and then editor at Women's Wear Daily from 1978 until January 1983, at which time he became the magazine's European editor, publisher, and Paris bureau chief until June 1985.

For the next eighteen months, Brantley worked as a freelance writer. He then wrote regularly for Elle, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker before joining the Times as a drama critic in August 1993. He was elevated to chief theatre critic three years later.

Brantley is the editor of The New York Times Book of Broadway: On the Aisle for the Unforgettable Plays of the Last Century, a compilation of 125 reviews published by St. Martin's Press in 2001. He received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for 1996-1997.

Brantley is single and lives in New York City.