In 2018, The Bobby Darin Story, starring Jonathan Groff, kicked off the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists season, the first series produced by former American Theater Wing chair Ted Chapin. Wearing a skinny tie and sharkskin suit, Groff, plus a couple men with pomade-polished hair and women in swing dresses, sang Darin’s biggest hits and shared anecdotes about the singer-songwriter-actor.
Who would have guessed that seven years later, that concert would morph into Just in Time, and Groff—fresh off his Tony win as Franklin Shepard in last season’s magnificent Merrily We Roll Along revival—would be on Broadway clutching a rubber duckie and singing “Splish Splash” in a speedo?
Before you roll your eyes and harrumph “not another jukebox musical,” allow us to set the scene: Circle in the Square has been transformed into a glittering art deco–style jewel of a nightclub courtesy of Broadway’s busiest set designer, Derek McLane (of this season’s Othello and Death Becomes Her). And Groff isn’t doing some half-baked, cruise-ship impersonation of the chart-topping crooner. He’s simply Jonathan Groff, and he’ll be telling us the story of Darin’s life. He’s backed by three “sirens,” Valeria Yamin, Christine Cornish, and Julia Grondin: “They’re gonna help me out tonight—and boy, do I need their help—and boy, are they gonna get spat on. And sweated on.” Depending on where you’re seated, you can expect that as well: Tables 1 through 11, the prime cabaret-style floor seats, are in the (splish) splash zone.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
“Now, I first heard this next song the way we all first heard this next song—twirling in our mother’s heels in Pennsylvania Amish country, listening to our father’s records,” Groff says, before easing into a Brylcreem-smooth rendition of “Beyond the Sea.” His rapport with the audience is so natural that we don’t even flinch when he steps into Bobby’s figurative shoes, going back to his childhood on 125th Street and 2nd Avenue in East Harlem, N.Y. Born Walden Robert Cassotto, he was a sickly kid who, by age 11, had three bouts of rheumatic fever that wreaked havoc on his heart. “Ma,” smoky-voiced ex-vaudeville star Polly Walden (Michelle Pawk), fed him Albanian goat milk and enthralled him with tales of the legendary Copacabana; overprotective older sister Nina (Emily Bergl) worries that he’ll “drop dead at any moment.” That moment was age 37.
Transitions are quick and snappy—literally, often done with a snap of the fingers and a dramatic shift of Justin Townsend’s saturated lighting. (Director Alex Timbers knows how to keep things moving.) Suddenly, we’re with Darin, future producing legend Don Kirshner (Caesar Samayoa), and up-and-coming singer Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence, who headlines the band Lawrence with her brother Clyde). Bobby falls hard for the 19-year-old Concetta Rosa Maria Ferrari–di Vito Franconero, but her father never approved. Cue up the perfectly placed “Who’s Sorry Now,” Francis’ timely-as-ever ultimate breakup song, which Lawrence pours her heart into.
Years later, he falls even harder for—and marries—“America’s sweetheart,” Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen, simply lovely), his costar in the romantic comedy Come September. Their relationship, Darin’s career, and Act 2 eventually all go south. That’s when the book, by Warren Leight—whose jazz-themed Side Man (ripe for a revival) won the 1999 Best Play Tony Award, and whose father played trumpet for Darin—and Isaac Oliver, takes a too-predictable wisdom-dispensing dead character tack.
But it all comes back to Groff. Buoyed by Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber’s kicky orchestrations, his renditions of Darin’s standards—the brassy, hard-edged “Mack the Knife,” with those insistent key changes, and the absolutely manic, horn-crazed “Once in a Lifetime”—are thrilling. The show is a testament to one man’s pure, unabashed love of performing. Make that two men.
Just in Time opened on April 26, 2025, at Circle in the Square. Tickets and information: justintimebroadway.com
