Jonathan Groff brings Bobby Darin to life in “Just in Time”

Tony Award-winner Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along) returns triumphantly to Broadway in Just in Time, a musical biography of singer-songwriter Bobby Darin. With the Circle in the Square Theatre transformed into the fabled Copacabana night club, Groff captures the spirit of Darin in both his professional career and personal life.

The show’s book, by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver, is interlaced with thirty-two songs by various composers, many of which were associated with Darin throughout his career.

Groff starts the show as himself, singing Steve Allen’s “This Could Be the Start of Something Big” and Jule Styne and Comden & Green’s “Just in Time.” He then introduces himself by saying, “I’m Jonathan, and I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight.” He mentions that, like Darin, he lives to entertain and his best relationships are those between himself and an audience. He then introduces the on-stage band, led by conductor / keyboardist Andrew Resnick, and the backup group The Sirens (Valeria Yamin, Christine Cornish, and Julia Grondin). Groff segues into Darin, singing Jack Lawrence, Charles Trenet, and Albert Lasry’s “Beyond the Sea” before starting to tell his life story.

Born Walden Robert Cassotto, a sickly child whose bouts with rheumatic fever have left him with a badly damaged heart, he is encouraged by his mother, ex-vaudevillian Polly Walden (Tony-winner Michelle Pawk), to share his musical talents with the world. Bobby is fussed over by Polly and his overprotective sister Nina (Emily Bergl), whose husband Charlie Maffia (Joe Barbara) eventually becomes Bobby’s valet / bodyguard on tour.

Bobby and his longtime friend Don Kirshner (Caesar Samayoa) have been writing pop songs, but without success until Don introduces Bobby to up and coming singer Concetta Rosa Maria Ferrari-di Vito Franconero, better known as Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence). The two hit it off professionally as well as personally until Connie’s hyper-protective father Giorgio (also Samayoa) runs him off with a pistol and Connie breaks things off with Bobby.

Meanwhile, Bobby, under the guidance of popular DJ Murray the K (Lance Roberts), writes and records his first big solo hit, “Splish Splash.” But while this success doesn’t feel the way Bobby thought it would, the president of his record label, Ahmet Ertegun (also Roberts) is pushing him to record more pop songs. After a tour featuring his newest hit, “Queen of the Hop,” is abruptly ended with news of Polly’s death, Darin defies Ertegun and his own manager to record an album of classics using his own money. And one of the songs is Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht’s “Moritat von Mackie Messer” — or, with the lyrics translated into English, “Mack the Knife.”

After the album’s success, Darin finds himself in Italy to shoot a movie, Come September, opposite starlet Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen). Darin falls for his co-star, but learning from his mistake with Giorgio Franconero decides first to get on the good side of her dragon mother, Mary Douvan (also Bergl). Darin and Dee marry and have a son, but the demands of Darin’s career and his touring schedule leave Dee feeling neglected and the marriage falls apart. In his depression, Darin turns to folk songs and political protest, and his career and popularity crumble. To make matters worse, the revelation of a long-held family secret rocks his confidence.

As directed by Alex Timbers and choreographed by Shannon Lewis, the show is a visual spectacle moving at a rapid pace. Groff is not only a talented singer and actor, but he has a true entertainer’s ability to play a crowd, connecting with almost everyone in the audience on a personal level — the same ability Bobby Darin had.

The rest of the cast feeds off the audience’s energy, and the spirit of the swinging ’60s, Darin’s era, is infectious. The sumptuous recreation of the Copacabana conjured by Derek McLane’s, sets as lit by Justin Townsend embraces you from the moment you walk into the auditorium, all sumptuous silks and deco lighting. The Circle in the Square’s thrust stage is transformed into a sea of intimate tables and plush banquettes, and from the first notes of the orchestra the electricity that only a Broadway musical can generate is palpable. And Catherine Zuber’s costumes, especially those for The Sirens, bring all the dazzle and flash of the period back with a vengeance.

Packing any performer’s life, even that of Bobby Darin, into two and a half hours does mean the story is cut down to its barest essentials with little room for nuance. But nuanced story-telling is not what Bobby Darin was best known for. He was an entertainer, pure and simple, and it is that spirit that Jonathan Groff conveys in Just in Time.

This is a performance by a great and talented entertainer that is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I cannot more strongly urge you to see Jonathan Groff and the rest of the highly talented cast. Make the trip to see a Bobby Darin performance, Just in Time!

Just in Time is presented at the Circle in the Square Theatre, 235 West 50th St., in New York. The show, originally scheduled to end in July, has currently been extended through Nov. 30, 2025. For more information, or to purchase tickets, go to justintimebroadway.com.