Our favorite Jonathan Groff theatre roles
The Tony Award-winning actor plays 1950s pop heartthrob Bobby Darin in Just in Time, the latest Broadway musical on Groff's extensive theatrical resume.
Look out, old Johnny's back! Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff’s latest stage role in Just in Time comes, well, just in time to mark the 20th anniversary of his Broadway debut. In the new jukebox musical, Groff plays Bobby Darin, the pop crooner known for making audiences swoon in the 1950s and '60s to hits like “Beyond the Sea,” “Mack the Knife,” “Splish Splash,” and “Dream Lover.”
It’s the latest Broadway star turn for Groff, who’s also known for leading TV shows like Looking and Mindhunter. Before Just in Time begins, get to know more about Groff’s busy stage career, and see him bring the house down at the Circle in the Square Theatre.
Check back for information on Just in Time tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
Fame
After appearing in several musicals in and around his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Groff earned his Actor’s Equity Association union card in 2005 at the North Shore Music Theatre in Massachusetts. He played a former child actor in the musical based on the 1980 Oscar-winning film.
In My Life
Groff also made his Broadway debut in 2005 as an understudy, swing, and dance captain in this short-lived musical. The plot concerned a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a man with Tourette’s syndrome, and an angel who’s their romantic wingman.
Spring Awakening
Groff had a breakthrough, alongside costars Lea Michele and John Gallagher Jr., in this 2006 Off-Broadway rock musical by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play. He played Melchior Gabor, a rebellious and lusty teenager in 19th-century Germany who challenges societal norms.
Groff reprised the role on Broadway later that year, earning his first Tony Award nomination and winning a Theatre World Award.
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical
Hippie days were here again in this 2007 Shakespeare in the Park staging of the landmark show that gave us the songs “Aquarius” and “Easy to Be Hard.” Groff starred as Claude, a passionate young man caught between his desire for freedom and the harsh reality of the Vietnam War.
Groff returned to the open-air Delacorte Theater two years later to play Dionysus, the god of wine and madness, in The Bacchae.
Prayer for My Enemy
After shooting his first movie, Taking Woodstock, Groff came back off Broadway in late 2008 in this dysfunctional family drama by Craig Lucas. In his Obie Award-winning role, Groff played a closeted gay soldier who fights in Iraq to prove his masculinity. “Groff has no trouble selling bruised sensitivity,” a Variety review reads.
The Singing Forest
Groff appeared in another Craig Lucas drama in 2009, playing an unemployed actor who poses as a wealthy recluse in a convoluted story that intertwines three generations of characters. The New York Times review called out Groff’s “natural emotional transparency” in a performance that earned the actor another Obie Award.
Deathtrap
Groff made his debut in London's West End opposite Simon Russell Beale in a 2010 revival of this Ira Levin thriller about a struggling playwright who plots to murder a student and steal his play. Twists, some fatal, ensue. London Theatre's critic praised Groff’s “energetic and youthful” performance as the student, Clifford Anderson.
Glee
Popping up periodically as Jesse St. James, a teenage vocal powerhouse, in the theatre-adjacent TV show Glee helped make Groff a household name. In a deleted scene, it also gave him a chance to cover A Chorus Line’s “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love” with Michele, who starred in the series. Hello, Spring Awakening reunion!
The Submission
Groff’s stream of notable stage turns continued in 2011 with Jeff Talbot’s provocative play about race, identity, and privilege. Groff led the Off-Broadway run as Danny, a white writer who submits a racially charged play to a theatre festival under a Black pseudonym. What could go wrong? For starters, the play gets accepted.
Frozen
In Disney’s 2013 blockbuster, which became a Broadway musical in 2018, Groff voices the rugged ice harvester Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. Cue up his big song, “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People!” Groff reprised his roles in Frozen 2, and we'll have to see if he returns to Arendelle for the upcoming Frozen 3.
Hamilton
In March 2015, Groff took over the role of King George — and songs like “You’ll Be Back” — off Broadway at The Public Theater, where the part was originated by Brian d’Arcy James. Groff reprised the amusing but menacing royal on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor and winning a Grammy Award together with the cast. New York Theatre Guide's critic praised Groff’s cheeky turn as the monarch who “reminds us in the nicest possible way that the little people are just that.”
Get Hamilton tickets now.
Little Shop of Horrors
Groff won an Outer Critics Circle Award for originating the role of nerdy florist Seymour in the 2019 revival of the 1982 musical that blends doo-wop, Motown, and pop. Seymour’s relationships with his coworker Audrey and a voracious, man-eating plant sets the kooky, campy show in motion. The production is still going strong off Broadway with a rotating lineup of stars.
Get Little Shop of Horrors tickets now.
Merrily We Roll Along
Alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez in Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical about fractured friendships, Groff played against his nice-guy type. As a composer-turned-film producer named Franklin Shepard, he delivered both “cold and warm fronts,” per New York Theatre Guide’s review of the 2022 Off-Broadway production directed by Maria Friedman.
He was true to form the next year in Merrily We Roll Along's Broadway transfer, for which he won his first Tony Award for Best Actor. “It’s our time,” the ill-fated three pals sing in the show. It was definitely Groff’s time too.
Just in Time
Groff has been connected to this jukebox musical for some time. It began as The Bobby Darin Story, a five-performance concert at New York’s 92nd Street Y in 2018, and has evolved into the full-scale production in which Groff plays the velvet-voiced teen idol and also makes his Broadway debut as a producer.
Alex Timbers directs Just in Time at the Circle in the Square Theatre, which will be transformed into a “Splish Splash”-y nightclub setting. Groff's resume is diverse and vast, but we haven't seen him in a setting like this — it's sure to be a dream.
Check back for information on Just in Time tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
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