God save the King! It's been confirmed that Jonathan Groff will continue his reign as King George III when off-Broadway hit Hamilton makes the move to the Great White Way this summer. Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical will begin previews on July 13 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, with opening night set for August 6.
Groff took over as King George at the Public Theater for Tony nominee Brian d’Arcy James, who departed the production to star in Something Rotten!. Groff won three Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards and was nominated for a Tony Award for playing Melchior in Spring Awakening. For the Public Theater, he previously starred in Hair at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park and The Bacchae. Other off-Broadway credits include The Submission, The Singing Forest and Prayer for My Enemy. He was also seen in Deathtrap in London's West End and Red at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Later this month, Groff will headline William Finn's A New Brain at City Center. Screen credits include the gay-themed drama Looking on HBO and Glee.
The Broadway-bound cast also stars the previously reported Miranda as Hamilton, Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Anthony Ramos as John Laurens/Phillip Hamilton, Daveed Diggs as Marquis De Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler and Javier Muñoz as Hamilton alternate. The company will additionally include Jasmine Cephas Jones, Okieriete Onaodowan, Carleigh Bettiol, Andrew Chappelle, Ariana DeBose, Alysha Deslorieux, Sydney James Harcourt, Neil Haskell, Sasha Hutchings, Thayne Jasperson, Stephanie Klemons, Morgan Marcell, Emmy Raver-Lampan, Jon Rua, Austin Smith, Seth Stewart, Betsy Struxness, Ephraim Sykes and Voltaire Wade-Greene.
Directed by Thomas Kail and featuring a book, music and lyrics by Miranda, Hamilton is inspired by the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. The new musical follows the scrappy young immigrant who forever changed America, from bastard orphan to Washington's right hand man, rebel to war hero, loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal to Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Eliza Hamilton and lifelong Hamilton friend and foe, Aaron Burr, all make appearances in the tuner about America’s fiery past.