Biopic musicals on Broadway go one of two ways: These shows can be an obvious tourist trap for out-of-towners who want the chance to sing songs like “Sweet Caroline” with a crowd, or they can be carefully constructed retellings of iconic entertainers that are imbued with heart and soul. Happily, the latter category includes Just in Time, the Jonathan Groff-led bio-jukebox musical centered around the mid-century crooner Bobby Darin, known for hits like “Dream Lover,” “Beyond the Sea,” and “Splish Splash.” The Tony-winning actor takes audiences on an emotional ride throughout the singer’s tumultuous life, which was tragically cut short at the age of 37 due to a weak heart caused by recurring bouts of rheumatic fever.
Groff says that Just in Time almost didn’t happen. But the show’s producer, Tom Kirdahy, helped him launch the idea of a Bobby Darin project off the ground. In 2019, when Groff was starring as Seymour in the off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, which Kirdahy also produced, Groff pitched him an idea about Darin and revealed he was obsessed with him. They decided at that moment that they were going to make the show. “He was just one of those performers who just resonated with me in my soul,” says Groff, who has shared that as a child he would twirl in his mother’s heels listening to Darin’s hits.
“He was the rare male performer that I felt, when I watched him, [could] activate the same part of me that got me really excited about the great divas like Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand … . He was this male singer that wasn’t just male vibrato. He had this passion and energy — he was an incredible performer,” Groff adds.
There were some logistical obstacles to launching the production, including the existence of an Australian jukebox musical based on Darin’s life called Dream Lover, which had a Melbourne run in 2017-2018. They were told it wouldn’t be easy to get the rights to Darin’s life, Groff says. But Kirdahy met with Darin’s son, Dodd, and had lunch with him. “I want to litigate the case for your father’s greatness,” Kirdahy told Dodd over lunch, as recounted to Out. “I believe there’s only one person who can do this, and it’s Jonathan Groff.” By the end of their meeting, he says, he walked out with the rights to Darin’s story, and they embarked on a six-year journey to bring it to the Broadway stage.
Michele Pawk as Polly Walden, Bobby Darin’s mother (center), with Valeria Yamin (left) & Julia Grondin (right).Matthew Murphy/Evan Zimmerman
Groff has been involved with the project since its inception, which is a first for him. That made his nomination at this year’s Tony Awards that much more special. “The energy that happens in that theater every night is so special,” says Groff, who is also a producer. “The Tony committee honored me and our show with six nominations, which makes it even more intense and emotional because it takes a village and many years to create something, so when it gets celebrated, it’s extraordinary.”
It’s clear that Kirdahy and Groff have a special connection, as the two showered one another with praise during their pre-Tonys interview. Kirdahy — a Broadway bigwig whose résumé includes The Inheritance, Hadestown, and the current revival of Gypsy — was married to the late, great American playwright Terrence McNally, who died in 2020 after battling COVID, just one year after they started working on Just in Time. Kirdahy says that making this show saved his life, because before McNally died, he made Kirdahy promise the project would get made. Kirdahy shares how it was spiritually nourishing to honor his late husband’s wishes. “In some ways, I feel like Terrence is a spiritual godfather of the show,” Kirdahy says, choking up. “He’s watching over us with such pride.”
Just in Time isn’t the only way McNally’s legacy will live on through these two creatives. On May 30, he was honored with a street named after him in New York City, with Groff taking part. That’s in addition to the upcoming movie adaptation of his stage musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, and Tonatiuh, which Kirdahy is producing. “There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about him, and I owe it to him to do my best work because he had so much belief in my abilities even when I didn’t,” Kirdahy says.
And the message of Just in Time is vital in this moment. The musical is about “a life well lived,” which “asks us to be mindful about how precious time is,” Kirdahy sums up. Its casting in a time of queer erasure is also critical. That Groff is a gay actor who “leads us to this incredible connection across generations and across demographics is far more powerful than, frankly, we understood [it] would be when we began this journey,” he adds.
When they began creating Just in Time several years ago, “we didn’t really know how divided we were going to be and that the arts would be under assault,” Kirdahy says. “This show is a testament to the power of live theater and the community that gets created and the ties that bind us. Maybe it’s a path forward for sanity and shared joy, rather than the kind of sort of incessant deliverance of trauma that is keeping us apart.”
This article is part of the Out July/August issue, which hits newsstands May 27. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting May 15.
