Jonathan Groff on Channeling Bobby Darin for Just in Time and Having a 'Real, Primal Need to Perform'
(Photo by Sergio Villarini for Broadway.com)
In the late 1950s, a wave of handsome, heavily Brylcreemed white men named Bobby became teen idols: Bobby Denton, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton. The most talented, by far, was Bobby Darin. Darin first burst onto the scene with “Splish Splash,” a teen-pop ode to bathtime, but soon, with his wryly smooth crooning style, he was rivaling Sinatra as the swingingest of swingin’ lovers. Later he reinvented himself as a folk singer, renaming himself Bob Darin in homage to Dylan.
It was a career marked by an overwhelming creative restlessness and success in diverse fields. He "could move with magical agility, he could do great impressions, he could rock, he was a swift and brilliant comedian, he could play seven instruments, he could write songs—167 of them," wrote biographer David Evanier. “He wanted to be a songwriter, actor, singer, and musician, and he became all of these.”
Tony winner Jonathan Groff first fell for Darin’s artistry while preparing to play him in the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y in 2018. “[Those performances were] so thrilling and so exciting,” he told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek. An obsession was sparked. “I'm so grateful for YouTube. I started watching clips of him, and it's a hole I just keep going deeper and deeper into.”
Groff was speaking in a well-appointed ninth-floor room in the Brill Building—Darin’s former office—during a break from rehearsals for Just in Time, the Bobby Darin Broadway biomusical that evolved from the Lyrics & Lyricists show. From March 31 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, Groff will be channeling Darin in a show that’s part concert, part theater, setting out to capture Darin’s genre-spanning, shape-shifting brilliance.
(Photo by Jenny Anderson for Broadway.com)
“I really connected with his ambition—pushing himself into different genres and styles, finding a connection to all of them musically,” Groff continued. “But most of all, I connect with his passion, his love for the audience, and his need to perform.”
Determined to push himself in his preparations for the role, Groff is taking drum and piano lessons and being put through his paces for what he says will be the most dance-heavy role of his career. All this less than a year after winning a Tony Award for his lead performance in Merrily We Roll Along: the very definition of not resting on laurels. "To feel those pathways in the brain grow and to feel that kind of expansion is so thrilling."
In fact, Groff will be in tech rehearsals for Just in Time during the week of his 40th birthday. “I'm such a specific person in that, if I could have anything for my 40th birthday, it would be teching a Broadway musical," he said. "I remember during Merrily, when we were doing the holiday Thanksgiving schedule—multiple shows, the whole schedule packed—I remember coming off stage, getting water from Hayley, who was dressing me, and saying, ‘I would so much rather be in the theater all day today than sitting on the couch.’ And she was like, ‘You're f**king crazy.’ But that's just who I am. I think I connect with Bobby Darin in that way. There’s a real, primal need to perform.”
"I think I connect with Bobby Darin in that way. There’s a real, primal need to perform." –Jonathan Groff
Darin’s own momentum was fueled by a sense of urgency that likely stemmed from a weak heart, the result of a childhood illness. After a bout of rheumatic fever at eight, he overheard a doctor telling his mother he wouldn’t live past 16. “He was living on borrowed time,” Groff said. “And so he had this ambition to make it as fast as he possibly could and do as much as he possibly could before the clock ran out. It was constantly at the front of his brain.”
The show will cover the major beats of Darin’s life—his marriage to Sandra Dee, his relationship with Connie Francis, and a major family revelation (which won’t be spoiled here) that triggered a nervous breakdown and, later, what Groff calls a “truly spiritual awakening.”
(Photo: Michaelah Reynolds)
That arc is reflected in the show’s musical journey—including Darin’s electrifying rendition of the Brecht-Weill classic “Mack the Knife”—all performed with a live band on stage. “It feels kind of like the Copacabana, but another essential purpose for having the band there is you feel the thrust of his life expressed through his musical journey. You really get the breadth of who he was as a person and an artist. Even just from listening to the music alone, that arc and that story are there.”
During the conversation, Groff also opened up about the late Gavin Creel, who passed away in 2024. “He changed my life,” said Groff. It was Creel, Groff shared, who inspired him to come out publicly. “We were dating, and he was so out. It was 2009. Coming out… it was sort of an unspoken or sometimes spoken thing that you were sacrificing something in your career if you did it. And I remember looking at him and thinking, I would rather feel this feeling than ever be on a TV show or in a movie. This is so much more meaningful to me. And so I owe him that.”
Ultimately, Groff said, there’s inspiration to be found in a life like Darin’s—or Creel’s—fully lived. “We're all here on borrowed time. This body is ours while we're here. And then it's not when we're gone. And so what I hope, and what I feel when I am inside of the material, is this deep, profound passion for life,” he said. “It makes me feel alive and makes me feel grateful to be alive.”
