Jonathan Groff Brings Bobby Darin’s NYC Story to the Stage

“I’m Jonathan, and I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight,” says Jonathan Groff, rising from beneath the stage of Circle in the Square via an elevator trap door like a Las Vegas showgirl. Groff playing Darin makes sense—heartthrob playing heartthrob–even though their backgrounds were wildly different. Groff grew up middle-class in Pennsylvania's Amish country. Darin was a product of Italian Harlem. In the new play Just in Time, which earned six Tony nominations, Groff (already a Tony Award® winner) leads audiences through the crooner's tumultuous journey from the streets of New York City to legendary stardom.

Bobby Darin's Early Years in NYC

Grammy-winning singer Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto in 1936. His family lived in a third-floor walkup in Harlem with three rooms: kitchen, living room, and bedroom joined by a long hallway, says his biographer, David Evanier. A classic railroad apartment. Bobby's crib was a cardboard carton in a drawer. From Harlem, the family moved to Mott Haven in the South Bronx, and then to the Baruch Houses near the FDR Drive in Lower Manhattan. Public housing was considered a step up.

“I never would have guessed I’d have anything in common with him, the playboy crooner," says Groff, whose portrayal of Darin earned him a 2025 Tony Award® nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. But Groff adds that even as a child twirling in his mother's pumps, he had always loved Darin.

Taking Darin's Story to the Stage

Now he's twirling on Derek McLane’s glitzy, art deco, immersive set designed to mimic New York City's real-life Copacabana nightclub. Ten tiny cabaret tables (if you can, pay the extra money for these seats) are positioned between two stages. It's a dazzling design that earned McLane a Tony nomination for Best Scenic Design of a Musical.

Opened at 10 East 60th Street in 1940, the Copa was the nightclub of Bobby Darin's dreams. He first performed there in 1960, becoming the personification of the Copa, writes Evanier—the best of the Copa and the last of the Copa. He was at his happiest, says his biographer, when he was entertaining Copa audiences and being loved in return.

As Groff notes, "This was the only relationship he was any good at. Honestly? Same.”

Directed by Alex Timbers, with a book by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver, Just in Time promises to entertain in fabulous fashion, and it does. Opening with "This Could Be the Start of Something Big" and sliding into "Beyond the Sea," Groff captures his audience and never lets go. “Bobby Darin was a supernova," Groff told People Magazine. "He blazed his way through every corner of the entertainment industry, but his enormous talent, charisma, and pure genius were most on display when he was letting it rip in front of a crowd."

The story of Darin's Harlem childhood of illness and poverty ("Sixty blocks north of here," says Groff) is told sympathetically. We meet his devoted mother, Polly (Michele Pawk), a former Vaudeville star who taught him to dance, sing the classics, and play the piano, and his sister Nina (Emily Bergl). He makes it to the Bronx High School of Science, Hunter College, and then the song-writing Mecca, the Brill Building, a block away from Circle in the Square. Quite the New York City journey.

Bobby Darin's Great Love

After getting Darin's childhood out of the way, JIT picks up when Bobby meets Concetta Rosa Maria Vito Franconero, known to the world as Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence-who snagged a Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical). She was almost surely the love of Bobby Darin's life, as he was hers. Her strict Italian father, who was also her manager, kept them apart and threatened Darin at gunpoint after they had eloped. Darin moved on. In her autobiography, Francis said that not marrying Darin was the biggest mistake of her life: "I loved him until the day he died and beyond that."

With her spectacular rendition of "Who's Sorry Now?," a formidable song to master, Gracie Lawrence makes us think once more about Connie Francis. In musing on the song's difficulties, Lawrence says "You have to sing it perfectly. It’s so exposed. Every note is heard." And she does sing it perfectly.

Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee

The show starts to drag a bit as Darin leaves New York for the West Coast and a Hollywood career. He's sent to Italy to co-star with Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen) in Come September, a frothy romantic comedy, and Dee's first film. There were tensions with her mother—Darin was eight years older—but three months later, they were married. Henningsen is valiant, but she's given little to work with.

The marriage soon turns unhappy as he tours constantly, and she starts to drink. Her career plummets, and he divorces her. Cruel ruthlessness, but it's all too fast for sympathy. Yet the sad story turns sadder when Nina, the woman he thought was his sister, tells him she is his mother and that his beloved mother Polly, was actually his grandmother.

It's Darin's turn to plummet. He leaves Hollywood and heads up to Big Sur for life in a trailer. He loses his fortune through a bad investment and returns to performing, which he does ferociously. This is too much for his weak heart. He dies at age 37 in 1973 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

But then comes the spectacular curtain call of one song after another. As Groff had told us early on, "All that matters is that you’re here and, tonight, you’re mine.” We certainly are.

Just in Time
Circle in the Square Theater through November 30
Running time: Two hours and 25 minutes, including an intermission
Tickets: $99 – $499
Book by Warren Leight & Isaac Oliver, based on an original concept by Ted Chapin
Developed & directed by Alex Timbers, choreographed by Shannon Lewis
Scenic Design by Derek McLane, Costume Design by Catherine Zuber, Lighting Design by Justin Townsend, Sound Design by Peter Hylenski, Hair & Wig Design by Tom Watson