In Alex Timbers’ new musical “Just in Time,” audience members are transported into the jukebox world of American singer Bobby Darin (Jonathan Groff), who rose to success from a teen idol to an overnight jazz sensation. The musical, which opened on Broadway in April, explores Darin’s short-lived life, beginning as a singer and songwriter with Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence) in the 1950s, his success as a solo artist and his relationship with actress Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen) in the ’60s.
“Just in Time” has been a runaway Broadway hit over the past few months, earning six Tony nominations including best leading performance by an actor in a leading role for Groff. The music tells the story of Darin’s relationships with Francis and Dee in an intimate nightclub setting at the Circle in the Square, and it’s the latest from Timbers, who has previously directed “Moulin Rouge,” “Beetlejuice” and “Here Lies Love.”
With the original Broadway cast recording now available on streaming, Variety spoke with Groff, Lawrence and Henningsen about portraying fame in the ’50s, what they believe made Darin fall in love with Dee and Francis during his career, and what they have learned as performers since setting foot into the world of Bobby Darin.
Bobby Darin, Connie Francis and Sandra Dee were all prevalent figures throughout America in the ‘50s and ’60s. When you all signed onto “Just in Time,” what elements of your research did you bring into the early stages of developing their characters on-stage?
Groff: Eight years ago, my friend asked me to do a night of Bobby Darin music at the 92nd Street Y and I started looking up clips on YouTube of Bobby Darin. I was just completely taken by his primal, ferocious way of performing that even leapt off of my laptop screen in these black-and-white clips from like over 50 years ago. And so I became really fascinated by him. I read this book called “Dream Lovers,” the book that [Bobby Darin’s son] Dodd Darin wrote. There’s a quote at the end of that book that we use in the show, which is Bobby Darin saying that at the end of the day, he was a nightclub animal. That was sort of the launch point for the conceit of the show and it’s been the gift of a lifetime to get to embody him and channel his spirit.
Henningsen: The big bible for all of us was Dodd Darrin’s book “Dream Lovers,” which was a biography he wrote about Sandra and Bobby, who were his parents. Dodd was the only child that the two had together. For me, what was most important was what information about Sandra’s life is helpful to the story, and what is the information that I can know internally and choose to bring out in little colors that maybe don’t show up in the text, but I can sort of infuse it with. I come on in the second act, and we have to kind of make a lot of story happen quickly. You can feel sometimes as an actor like you’re being rushed through things. Sandra and Bobby fell in love immediately and were married less than a year later. It’s actually nice sometimes to have the research and if it feels like whiplash to the audience, it feels like whiplash to Sandra in real life.
Lawrence: I went into the process already knowing [Connie’s] music because I have parents who are music-obsessed. I didn’t know a lot about her life story, which is incredibly impressive, compelling, dramatic, and in some ways tragic. I spent a lot of time learning about her because I wanted to make sure I understood her whole life, even though we were only depicting a small chapter of it. A part of the joy and challenge of playing a real person is making sort of your best educated guess of who they were behind the scenes at the time.
Both Connie and Sandra had tumultuous relationships with Bobby throughout their careers. How did all three of you work together to show the evolution of all of their relationships with Bobby throughout “Just in Time?”
Henningsen: Jonathan’s the easiest person to have chemistry with on stage ever. I don’t think he’s ever been in a show opposite anybody where you haven’t fully believed it. Jonathan’s so open, and by Act 2, he’s had the audience in the palm of his hand for an hour. And I think what Jonathan does so beautifully is he really passes me the ball when I come out, and he doesn’t try to take it. I really sort of took over steering the show for 15 minutes away from our leading man. I think what Jonathan does so beautifully is like, if there was any friction there, you wouldn’t get to know Sandra enough to care about her. In Act 2, Bobby and Sandra become equals because you see her in her first moment on stage do the thing that he’s been doing the whole time, and he realizes he’s met his match.
Groff: It’s such an American story of [Bobby and Sandra’s marriage in] under 40 minutes. So much happens so quickly, which is an expression of the fact that his life moved so fast, and considering he died by the time he was 37 and he was always aware of that ticking clock. That is definitely articulated in that relationship between Sandra and Bobby in the show and our incredible book writer Isaac Oliver and our director Alex Timbers would do work sessions about the characters and about the research and what we had read. Isaac, our writer, was really interested in collaborating and talking about the sort of beats of their story and the relationship dynamics in the Bobby and Sandra relationship that most spoke to us as people today.
Lawrence: Jonathan and I have such a natural rapport as people and it mirrored the relationship that Connie and Bobby had. Our relationship is not romantic, but they have so much love and respect for one another. I think it’s a coincidence and it’s a really fortuitous one with the way that we like to perform with each other. It seems to really mirror the way that Bobby and Connie perform with each other, which is just to have fun and to be really present and to react to whatever the other one is giving them.
Gracie, you play a younger version of Connie who was the first love of Bobby Darin’s life. Both you and Erika portray two very different women at different stages in his lives, and also play young women who are becoming more successful throughout their careers in the musical. As both Connie and Sandra deal with fame in their own ways, what is it like to explore this era of fame and womanhood in the public eye?
Lawrence: Bobby Darin was known for being attracted to or interested in very strong women. His mother was a very strong woman and that kind of personality was something he was drawn to, I think you’re right to say that Sandra Dee and Connie Francis were very different people, although they share a lot of similarities in their life, including success and at a very young age and the trauma that comes along with that. The joy for me is creating a character that feels really fully embodied, that even though all of them were superstars of the era, we get to see the outside of them, and it’s so exciting to play women who feel really well-rounded. That is really exciting, and because each of us only has a chapter of the show. The personality of these women, and that’s just not for me and Erika, but for the other women in the show, is the fact that Bobby Darin is surrounded by strong female characters all throughout the musical.
“Rainin’” is one of the songs on this musical that feels very cinematic. When you all are performing, do you ever feel like the staging makes the performance more vivid?
Henningsen: It’s so funny you say that I was on stage the other day and it is a very cinematic feeling with these songs. The great thing about pop songs is that they’re underwritten and a lot of contemporary musical theater is very overwritten. We’re narrating the thing that we’re doing, whereas pop music is that the lyrics are generally open for interpretation. Your word “cinematic” is so correct, because the songs are meant to be evocative of a mood. Pop songs are meant to be evocative of a mood as opposed to facts. There’s a moment in “Rainin’” where I’m downstage in a spot and Jonathan’s behind me, and we’re lit in a way that’s clearly showing we’re in two different places mentally, and I’m watching him sing. Nobody can actually see my eyes watching Jonathan sing, but I do feel I’m in a movie at that moment where it’s like Sandra at home and hearing Bobby on the radio. I really hadn’t thought of it that way, but I think that’s what people are responding to.
Groff: That’s an interesting usage of words. The way that Alex has designed the space, because it’s using Circle in the Square in such a unique and expansive way, that performing the whole show feels quite cinematic. Being inside of his vision of what the space looks like with that B stage, and in the performance of the songs, I feel a spirituality in the music.
What are you most hopeful for audiences to discover when they hear the “Just in Time” soundtrack, and what has playing each of your characters taught you about yourselves as performers?
Lawrence: I really hope that this show introduces Connie Francis’ music to a younger generation. I think her voice is so modern, and her voice feels like it fits into the modern music landscape, especially with this kind of genre of music making a resurgence in itself, like artists like Laufey. This is a genre of music that is reappearing in pop music. I have a band called Lawrence and a lot of our music is inspired by the ’60s and ’70s, but this earlier genre is coming back to a late ’50s sound. It’s very exciting to be a part of this lineage of women who have come after her.
Henningsen: I think people thought Sandra was this pristine, virginal, delicate cupcake girl. In some ways she was, but she became an adult really fast. There are these interviews of Sandra, where I see her, she’s only 25 years old, and she’s a mom and an intelligent woman even when people were sort of trying to diminish her girlhood. She didn’t know how to do things like love or be in a relationship or be in a marriage, but I mean, does anybody really know how to do that? It just was so important to me that when you meet Sandra, you see her with that blonde wig and the pink cupcake dress, and you immediately assume one thing. My favorite thing about playing her is subverting that expectation over the course of her journey in the show, as sort of my emotional catharsis. Oftentimes, I will be an agreeable person, but I really am starting to learn that there’s a difference between being agreeable and refusing to trust your inner voice.
Groff: I would love for audiences to walk away with the appreciation of who Bobby Darin was as a person and as an artist. But even in a broader sense than that is learning about the irreplaceable magic of the relationship between performer and audience, which to me is what Bobby represented in his prime and his time. Yes, he was a recording artist and an Oscar-nominated actor, but by all accounts, he was at the height of his powers in the center of a nightclub floor. Playing Bobby has changed my life in so many ways since we’ve been working on the show for eight years, and he was a man that never gave up and kept his nose to the ground with the time he was given. Every day I get to try to evoke him when I go out there on stage and I’m eternally grateful to get to embody him at this moment in time.
