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Perth Now
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Jonathan Groff grateful to get older
Jonathan Groff sees every day as a "gift". The stage star turned 40 in March but he feels "privileged" to be around to get older and though his feelings around ageing can be "complicated", his overwhelming emotion is gratitude. Discussing his role as singer-and-actor Bobby Darin in Broadway musical Just in Time, he grew emotional as he told People magazine: "There's a line at the end of the show that I say: 'Every breath we take is a gift we get to open.' "I'm realising that to get older is a privilege. Aging is complicated, and can be confronting. But to be here now is a gift. Every day is a gift." And Jonathan has pledged to use his future birthdays to express his gratitude for life, rather than "make a wish" for the things he wants. He said: 'I was with my family, they were singing 'Happy Birthday,' and I was about to make a wish. And then I thought, 'No more wishes.' "It's just 'thank you,' now. That's it. I don't need for anything. I don't wish for anything. I'm just really grateful to be here.' Jonathan is nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical at the Tony Awards for Just in Time and making the shortlist means a lot to him because he has been involved with the production from the beginning. He said: 'It's meant so much. We've been developing this Bobby Darin musical for eight years now. So to get six nominations for the show was just phenomenal and incredible. It's been such a long road to get here, and every night at the theater feels like a gift. 'I've never been involved in something from its inception. So there's this extra energy of 'We all made this together,' and the nominations were extra sweet.' Mack the Knife singer Bobby suffered chronic health issues and died in 1973 aged just 37, so Jonathan feels the production has an important message to impart. He said: "His life is operatic. He was told he was going to die by the time he was 16 when he was eight. "And the way we're kind of weaponising his story in our show is: He accomplished a lot in a short period of time because he had this ticking clock. "What we're hoping to give the audience is this message: Life is short. Live it to the fullest while you can.'
New York Post
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Just in Time' review: Jonathan Groff parties like it's 1965 in stellar Bobby Darin musical
Theater review JUST IN TIME Two hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission. At the Circle in the Square Theatre, 235 West 50th Street. That a musical about the too-short life of Bobby Darin, the 1950s and '60s crooner who notched a string of hits before dying young at 37, would turn out to be one of the most wondrous of the season was not on my Broadway bingo card. He wasn't a Michael Jackson or a Tina Turner. And even though Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons came shortly after him, their show 'Jersey Boys' feels like a Broadway of a bygone era. Advertisement But director Alex Timbers and his irrepressible star Jonathan Groff have made magic with 'Just in Time,' which opened Saturday night at the Circle in the Square Theatre. For a little over two hours, there's nowhere you'd rather be than at this dazzling dream of a New York that truly never slept, presided over by a Harlem-born singer whose output was so rich and rapid-fire that the man must have been fueled by the dire prognosis he received as a child: Darin wasn't supposed to live past 16. 'Just in Time' is a wallop of joy, though. And while it doesn't shy away from Darin's heart struggles, anatomically and romantically, the musical is never gloomy. Advertisement What's astounding is how the show manages to be, at once, both jukebox retro and to-the-minute fresh. Too often, onstage musician biographies are tethered to and limited by twitch-perfect impersonations and the same old scene-song-scene-song formula. They're judged, clinically, like Madame Tussauds wax replicas. What Timbers, Groff and designer Derek McLane do instead is conjure the electricity of a late, boisterous night at the Copacabana. 5 Jonathan Groff plays singer Bobby Darin the new Broadway musical 'Just in Time.' Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Advertisement The audience is situated in a sumptuously imagined, sparkling silver nightclub with multiple stages and a brilliant band in back. Groff spiritedly darts around the room, jumping on tables and dancing with ticket-buyers like the consummate host. The actor, bursting with charisma, sweeps away the old radio static from Darin's classics like 'Mack the Knife,' 'Dream Lover' and 'Beyond the Sea' with his silky tenor. Groff, by the way, is introduced as, well, Jonathan Groff. 'I'm Jonathan, and I'll be your Bobby Darin tonight,' he announces. The actor also amusingly points out we are, in fact, in the basement beneath 'Wicked.' The self-reference (he even jokes about his well-known habit of spitting when he speaks) is a shrewd move by book writers Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver that allows Groff to become Darin in his lively essence rather than a pile of pat mannerisms. Advertisement 'Bobby wanted nothing more than to entertain,' Groff adds. And then he fabulously follows in his footsteps. 5 Erika Henningsen plays Darin's wife Sandra Dee. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Much of 'Just in Time' is a fantastic party. Ditties such as 'Splish Splash' that the younger set will think is a parent's baby-talk become surprise showstoppers. Timbers, who also directed the atmospheric ragers 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Here Lies Love,' brings his unique sense of fun to material that doesn't obviously scream out for it. Lo and behold, it's some of the best work of his career, and just what this limping genre needed — like Baz Luhrmann and 'Elvis.' Darin's turbulent life offstage is covered, too, though not exhaustively or exhaustingly. His relationship with Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence), who he wrote songs for before he hit it big, and his rocky marriage to movie star Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen) show the personal toll of fame. 5 Michele Pawk's Polly plays a major role in the darker second act. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Lawrence — whose name sounds like she could've landed a record deal in 1965 — makes a terrific Broadway debut with a striking voice belting out tunes like 'Who's Sorry Now?' And Henningsen has real authority with the more full-throated emotional arc as her marriage collapses in the public eye. Bobby also loves and spars with his mother Polly (Michele Pawk) and sister Nina (Emily Bergl), who concealed an existence-altering secret from him for almost his entire life. Advertisement The darker second act, needless to say, does not fizz as much as the more innocent first. 5 Emily Bergl's Nina has kept a secret from Bobby for a lifetime. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman But, much like Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen in 'The Boy From Oz,' the excellent musical thrives on Groff's natural effervescence and ability to connect so deeply and personally with audiences. 'Merrily We Roll Along,' which he won a Tony for last year, was a giant leap in his maturity as an actor. I'd actually seen him play Bobby in an early version of this musical seven years ago at the 92Y. Groff sounded great as ever then, but the gravitas and world-weariness of a man who's fully aware his time is short weren't there yet. Advertisement 5 Groff nails the part of a talented entertainer who knows he's running out of time. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Well, they are now. And how. The Broadway season ends today. One of its most enjoyable shows has arrived just in time.
Chicago Tribune
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: In ‘Just In Time' on Broadway, Bobby Darin's story gives Jonathan Groff a chance to shine
NEW YORK — Watch out, Hugh Jackman! Jonathan Groff is coming for your crown as Broadway's greatest showman. And he's got the slickest attraction in town as ammo. Groff's new vehicle, 'Just in Time,' a jukebox trot through the life of mid-century crooner/songwriter Bobby Darin, doesn't tread new formative turf but benefits exponentially from some major advantages over your common or garden-variety Broadway biography. No. 1: Darin's life is far more interesting than most. He had fast, fraught relationships with two very famous women in Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence) and Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen). And having long suffered from a weak heart, he was dead at 37, still in his prime. Ergo, there's a baked-in sense of urgency to the show and no slow decline with which to wrestle. And there are surprises in his life story that those who know Darin only as the man who sang 'Mack the Knife,' if at all, likely won't know. No. 2: Groff is working at Circle in the Square and he has combined with director Alex Timbers to emphasize the intimate possibilities of that unique Broadway space. High-priced cabaret tables are in the middle of the room upon which Groff/Darin can sit, preen and even twirl to the palpable delight of the fat-cat customers. No. 3: Nothing says classy, big Broadway night out like Art Deco — still — and the designer Derek McLane has created a simply gorgeous environment for this show, oozing glamor from every bandstand, sheer drape and chandelier. The effect is to summon a retro room so rich in hue and seductive in ambiance that you find yourself not wanting to go back outside. They tried and failed to do this at 'Cabaret.' Here, every sequin shimmers. You could see dates all over the place warming up to whomever paid for their tickets. I wouldn't claim there is anything extraordinary about Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver's book, which starts out by embracing Groff's own identity ('I'm Jonathan') and then mostly, and mostly weirdly, drops that convention as Darin takes over. Might have been fun to go all the way with the fusion. But aside from offering lots of stage time to the excellent Lawrence and Henningsen, not to mention Michele Pawk, who essays the woman who raised the star, the show also plays to Groff's unusual strengths. He's a dynamic, live, in-the-moment actor, far more so than many of his peers, and as anyone who saw him in 'Merrily We Roll Along' well knows, he has more than a passing acquaintance with life's darker tones. He doesn't brood as Darin, which is just as well, but he also doesn't deify either, and neither does the show as a whole. Add in exceptional arrangements of the Darin songbook from Andrew Resnick, a stunningly extensive parade of fashionista costumery from Catherine Zuber and some high-energy choreography from Shannon Lewis (who concentrates her work on three killer-glam back-up dancers, sizzlingly played by Christine Cornish, Julia Grondin and Valeria Yamin) and you have the kind of show that can please with its pizzazz but also make the average Broadway punter feel like they had a more personalized kind of experience than is on offer down the street. It's hard to convey cabaret-style intimacy with this level of production values and that sweet spot will be very much occupied by 'Just in Time,' most likely for as long as Groff is willing. In the end, people will come mostly to see Groff, as well they should. He's fabulous. Plus the timing is just right as this musical-theater actor, shy all those years ago in 'Spring Awakening,' now takes up the vital mantle of big Broadway star, a status he has approached before but never fully inhabited. Not until Bobby Darin came along to help. Toward the end, Darin, having been through the wringer but not quite yet met his maker, takes his preferred stage at the Copacabana and shouts, with the cathartic joy of a man who has found his way home, 'I am a creature of the nightclub.' On the night I was there, the audience roared, thinking that also of Groff and yet also well aware he's a talent who will just as easily roam elsewhere.
CBC
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Michael Bublé was told it was never going to happen
Before Michael Bublé became known as a five-time Grammy-winning international superstar, the Canadian crooner from Burnaby, B.C., lived in downtown Toronto where he made his living performing in bars. "It was happening in a big way," he tells Q 's Tom Power in an interview. "I mean, listen, was it happening, like, was I making good money? No. I was just fighting for gigs." Despite his undeniable talent, Bublé didn't immediately find fame. After 10 years playing Toronto's bar scene, he considered moving back to B.C., and maybe enrolling in a university broadcasting program or starting a family with his girlfriend at the time. WATCH | Michael Bublé's full interview with Tom Power: "[I was] waking up to the reality that, you know, it just might not happen for me," he says. "I had many friends who were in broadcasting and they were journalists. And I was like, listen, maybe I'm not going to be the story. Maybe I'll be part of telling the story." But then, in a fortuitous turn of events, Bublé landed his biggest gig yet: singing at the wedding of Caroline Mulroney, the daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. "I had done this corporate event for a car company or something, and when I was there, I gave this CD I had — one of my last indie CDs called BaBalu — to a fellow named Michael McSweeney. He was this really lovely guy who ended up being very close to the Mulroney family. He was like a right-hand kind of man; I think he was a speechwriter." The next day, McSweeney told Bublé that the former prime minister's wife, Mila Mulroney, was in Toronto and wanted to meet him. She and her husband had heard his CD and loved it. At their meeting, Bublé told Mila his story and she invited him to sing at her daughter's wedding. "Not anybody knew who I was," he says. "So there I am at the wedding, and I'm singing Mack the Knife or something, and I look and there's our prime minister with his arm around [music producer David Foster], kind of in half headlock. Real proud." At this point in the story, you might expect Foster — one of the greatest producers in pop music history — to have immediately offered Bublé a recording contract on the spot. But that's not what happened. "Not even close," Bublé says. "He kicked me out of his house, as a matter of fact. I came to his house so many times and I said, 'What's it going to take?' And he said, 'You are on my radar. Get the f–k out. It's never going to happen.' I said, 'Listen, it has to happen. So tell me what has to happen.' And he said, 'Look, dude, you're never going to get signed to Warner … I'm never going to produce your records.' I said, 'Well, what do I got to do?' He said, 'Look, $100,000 a track. That's what it costs to do a record like this. And six tracks, minimum. Good luck.'" He said, 'You are on my radar. Get the f–k out. It's never going to happen.' After Bublé left Foster's house, his manager at the time, Beverly Delich, went to the bank to secure him a loan. She eventually found someone willing to underwrite it, and Bublé returned to Foster to tell him he had the funds to make his record. "Even then, it wasn't the end of the story," Bublé says. A few days into working on the record, Foster told Bublé that Paul Anka wanted to meet him. They set up a meeting at Anka's house, and Bublé sang the song My Way by Frank Sinatra, which Anka wrote. "Paul was like, 'Hey, you know what? I'm going to get the money. You don't need the money from these investors!'" After thanking the investors and calling off the loan, Bublé was excited to finally be living his dream. But from there, "it got weirder," as he puts it. The deal ultimately fell through and Bublé was back to square one. But instead of packing it up and heading home to B.C., he did something brave. At Kenny G's wedding anniversary, Bublé approached Foster one more time and asked him to let him plead his case to Tom Whalley, the president of Warner. "That was putting [David] in a very awkward position," Bublé says. "When you ask a person like David to bring you into that meeting, you're basically saying, 'Hey, put your balls on the line for me.'" At the meeting, Whalley asked Bublé why Warner should sign him, adding that they already had Sinatra on Reprise Records, a subsidiary of Warner. "I said, 'Mr. Whalley, with all due respect, Sinatra's passed, he died,'" Bublé recalls. "'Don't bury the music with him. Give me a chance. I will work harder than any artist on your roster. I will work harder. And if you let me, I will continue the legacy of my heroes, and I will never stop.'" About five days later, Bublé received a call from Foster. "I'll never forget it," Bublé says. "He said, 'Mike, man, I want to welcome you to the family. You're never going to have to worry again. We've got you now.'" This Sunday, Bublé is back on Junos hosting duty for the first time since 2018. The Juno Awards will be broadcast and streamed live across Canada from 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. AT on CBC-TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, and globally at and CBC Music's YouTube page.
Express Tribune
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
From Haroon's heart to ours
I do not have cool taste in music. Or, indeed, cool taste in anything. I know this because I have three children who remind me of this daily, usually every time they are trapped in a moving car with me and my faithful playlist. This trusty playlist is not quite the nails-across-a-blackboard affair that my dear children would have you believe. Dil Se by Haroon, Mack the Knife by Bobby Darrin and Mamma Mia by ABBA have all made the cut. Mamma Mia: because it is the musical equivalent of caffeine (unless you are my poor misguided offspring, in which case it is the equivalent of a general anaesthetic or a dying cat), Mack the Knife: because what's not to love in a jaunty jazzy tune about a bloodthirsty serial killer? And of course, our very own Haroon's Dil Se: because it does exactly what it says on the tin. It speaks to the heart, comes from the heart, and is all heart from start to finish. If you cynics are now feeling faint, it is enough to know that even if he didn't mean it, Haroon faked it well enough to make us believe he did. It is this authentic fakery that matters more than anything else. The return of Haroon What seems like aeons after he unfurled Dil Se before us, Haroon is back with a brand new track. As far as comebacks go, it's been quite the year for unexpected offerings from artists of the days of yore. For example, as we have already seen on these pages, we have the Backstreet Boys, of all people, reminding us that Millennium exists. Oasis fans, meanhwhile, have their hopes pinned on the Gallagher brothers keeping the peace long enough to not mess up their reunion on stage this summer. Not to be outdone, British '90s boyband, Five, have also decided they will be back this year. Haroon's triumphant return to the music scene has been less dynamic, but it is a return nonetheless. The man shook things up on Instagram in February by dropping word of his latest song Cha Jaa, a collaboration with Aima Baig. Those familiar with Haroon's Burka Avenger will already know that this man who once gravitated towards the pyramids (Mehbooba) also has a penchant for children's television. With all this in mind, then, Cha Jaa is a high-energy dance video serving as the official soundtrack for the children's animated TV series Planet Champs, and it is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a techno dance number telling you it is time to save the planet. It's not quite Heal the World, but it will do. Picture a live-action + animation twenty-first-century edition of Captain Planet, and you will have some idea of what you are in for. If you care for neither animation nor high-octane Captain Planet-type escapades, Cha Jaa will almost certainly leak out of your head like water from a sieve no matter how much live-action anyone throws into the video. Having said that, it would be unfair to judge Haroon entirely on the basis of Cha Jaa when he has given us so much more – even if we do have to travel far, far back in time to find it. Why Haroon matters to this expat To hardcore Haroon fans, he will always be the Romeo who decided that sand, pyramids, a Sphynx and a woman calling him her 'habibi' melded together to form the ultimate aphrodisiac in Mehbooba. For others, he will be the man who danced along in perfect time with his buddy Fakhir, clad in a blinding white kurta shalwar and a tasteful green dupatta slung across his neck in Ay Jawan. The two key components of anything hoping to stoke the flames of nationalist pride are the colours green and white, and in this, Haroon and Fakhir succeeded spectacularly as they both leapt around with reckless abandon (through a rakish diagonal camera lens, as was music video law when Ay Jawan was shot in the 1997.) In addition to all this burst of green and white, Ay Jawan relies on the power of repetition. With the helpful use of the word 'Pakistan', the odds were always going to be low that this song would leak through people's heads. Ay Jawan may not quite be Dil Dil Pakistan, but it has stuck around in people's heads long enough to form a core memory of '90s Pakistan for those who were around to live through it. But to someone who only hung around in Pakistan during the summer holidays in the '90s, Ay Jawan has slipped through the nets. To me, it captures the flavour of carefree Augusts and houses brandishing flags from the rooftops, but not much more beyond. With a tune easy enough for a two-year-old to memorise, Ay Jawan is hard to forget, but comes with few emotional bonds other than a hollow wish for a summer free from the shackles of adulting. Dil Se, however, is where Haroon kicked aside the memories of the green-and-white diagonal choreography of Ay Jawan and truly achieved what he set out to conquer: evoking a hearty mix of patriotic pride and unsolicited tears. For a teenager growing up in Kuwait, Dil Se was the best present any Pakistani artist has ever delivered. Cheesy? Yes. Reminiscent of boybands with its formulaic structure? Absolutely. A banner of pride with a melody you can listen to on repeat? Yes. And also yes. There is nothing wrong with cheesy boyband-ness in small doses. For a semi third culture kid (the product of Pakistani parents in an Arab country going to an English school), there is a whirlwind of mixed messages to take on board. You identify with the Urdu-speaking parents at home. Those are your roots. But at school, you cannot help but look on in jealousy at your close-knit Kuwaiti, Egyptian and Lebanese cohorts conversing rapid-fire Arabic. The words gush from their lips like a waterfall during those coveted moments in break time when no teacher is reprimanding anyone for not speaking in English. You with your half-hearted Arabic-as-a-second-language lessons can catch only tantalising snippets (although by now you are well versed in Arabic insults, which are traded amongst your male peers on a minute-by-minute basis during those moments of sweet release from lessons.) Amidst all this, Haroon's Dil Se gave me something that my dear Arab cohorts could not have a hope of making head or tail out of: Urdu music with a heart. Putting on Dil Se in the A-level common room, I at last had something from my origins that I could show off with smug pride, something that caused the other kids to pause and admit that Pakistani music is as cool as anything else they had heard on the radio. For a few glorious weeks at school, Dil Se gave me an identity, a raft in the middle of a sea of confusion – and for that reason alone, Cha Jaa or no Cha Jaa, Haroon deserves a very, very belated and heartfelt thank you.
