Video: Jonathan Groff is Bringing His Passion Project to Broadway
Feb 7, 2025
Watch in this video as Jonathan Groff and Alex Timbers are joined by the rest of the cast of Just In Time (which also includes Erika Henningsen, Michele Pawk, Gracie Lawrence) to explain what the show is all about.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff is returning to Broadway as Bobby Darren in the new musical Just in Time, which is conceived and directed by Alex Timbers
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And we drop by so-and-so's to meet the company. I am beyond excited
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It's been almost a seven-year process of developing this show. It's been a passion project for all of us working on at this creative team
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We've been together, most of us, for all those seven years. and to finally be bringing it to Broadway is so exciting
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So eight years ago, Ted Chapin had said, why don't we do a weekend of lyrics and lyricists
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and the night second street Y, and you'll do the songbook of Bobby Darren. And so Jonathan called me and he said
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would you like to work on this? I'd never worked with him before. And I was like, absolutely. And I think the great thing was
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we had never seen a lyrics and lyricist before, so we didn't know what it was supposed to be. So we staged a whole musical in two days
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And the experience and the audience response was sort of ignited this fire that
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We should try to actually do this. What was it about him that unlocked him for you
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Because you're embodying him, his spirit, his soul. What was it for you
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It was his, like, he would, like in these clips that I was watching on YouTube, it started with that
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I was like, this guy is, there is a primal need to perform that I connect with
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I mean, he was this, like, Playboy crooner. I'm, you know, a musical theater nerd from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania
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In some ways, he grew up in the Bronx, couldn't be more in opposition as far as like
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energies and people. But there was something in him that I saw that I felt like I understand what this need is Our trombone player Jimmy O we were texting about Bobby and his music and he pointed out to me which is such a great observation
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that anytime you watch Bobby Darren sing Mac the Knife Live, he never does it the same way twice, but you always know it's him doing it
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And so one of the things that we're attempting to do musically, and Andrew Resnick are phenomenal music supervisor arranger
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with these incredible arrangements that honor, the past, but hopefully also feel relevant and in the present moment too. And we're trying to
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create like space in the, in the musicianship for live in the moment things happening. So we wanted to
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feel as present as possible every night, eight shows a week, of course doing the same material
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but trying to feel it fresh every single night. And part of the gift of the Bobby Deering
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catalog is that you've got the 50s, 60s, and 70s. So you have the kind of like, you've got the
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like Sinatra, Sammy Davis, kind of like a great American songbook stuff. You've got the pop, like 50s
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60s music. And then you've got the early 70s, late 60s folk music. If I were a carpenter
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we get to really run the gamut of musical styles. I mean, to be really honest, this is a gift for me
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in so many ways. I worked with Jonathan years ago. He played my son in a beautiful Craig Lucas
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just play. And so the opportunity to kind of pick up where that relationship left off and just
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go deeper has been really a gift. And then this whole creative team, right? Alex, Shannon
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Andrew. I mean, it's kind of unbelievable. Oh my gosh. I feel like I've been shot out of
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canon I can believe it I really excited I came to the process kind of later in the game and I literally feel like I the number one fan of the show because every day I discover something new about it
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and go like, wait, that's what our set looks like, that's what Gracie sounds like, that's what Jonathan does
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I mean, it's kind of wild, and I'm just excited. I mean, I'm excited to just be in the rehearsal process and craft it
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But I know when we get an audience there, it's just going to take on a whole
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whole other element that I have never experienced in my live theatrical life
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Like, the audience for this show, I think, is as important as the work that we're doing on
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stage. And I am, like, tickled for that experience. I mean, I've been a fan of Jonathan's
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forever, and I've been a fan of Alex's forever. And I met Alex a few years ago and just
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have admired him and his work. And the way that he kind of
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has his own role book for how Broadway operates and the shows that he makes
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are so creative and so innovative and so being in one of those shows
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is kind of like life-changing and at the same time working with Jonathan who
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as we all know is a nightmare and I work with no you can only make that joke because he's
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literally the opposite of that a perfect performer and a perfect person
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so it's just been like a dream I sound like I'm being so
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But it's actually that experience. Yeah. You're going to see his life. You're going to see his life story as he was starting as a writer, discovered that he's a singer
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And then how he kind of catapults himself into the entertainment industry and changes it You know changes it like right on his feet He starts doing something different that people have never done before It an incredible story and he an incredible talent
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I cannot wait. You know, first of all, I love this music forever. I've always been a Bobby Darren fan
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From the time I was watching Happy Days when I was, like, nine years old, and Potsie would sing Splish Splash
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I'm like, that's a great song. So I've always been a Bobby Darren fan, and to be able to be a part of it on Broadway, unthinkable
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I mean, Alex Timbers, Jonathan Graff, Bobby Darren, the music of Bobby Darren, just stop right there. That's enough for me
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No, I'm so excited. The music really lends itself to dance. And we're dancing a lot in this show
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And Jonathan has never danced this much in any show he's ever done. So it's a huge opportunity for me
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to build such beautiful stylized choreography, but also keep it kind of edgy, you know, in 2025
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So we're kind of holding hands with the past. But gosh, what an amazing opportunity. There's never been, you know, this
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of the immersive staging that we're doing with the show and how we're going to move around
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through the crowd and also dance, you know, production numbers and everything. So it's, it was an
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amazing, amazing thing. And I, I jumped at the chance. Being in the room with Jonathan Graff
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creating Bobby Darry, what's it been like for you? You know, I've had a lot of close collaborations
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with actors, particularly over the last decade, but nothing compares to what this has been with
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Jonathan. This is his passion project. It's become my passion project. He's involved with the design
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He's involved with the dramaturg. He's involved with every element. And it is such a wonderful welcome collaboration
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So the thing you see on stage is the product of the writers, the designers, me, the choreographer
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But it's really also majorly a product of Jonathan's imagination
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