People saying nice things about Jonathan Groff

Bernadette Peters Has a Passion for That Cynthia Erivo Rumor

Bethy Squires

Folks, you heard it here first. Or at least this is the first time you’re hearing it from Bernadette Peters. Since last week, rumors have been swirling that Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Groff would be starring in a new Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion. On the 2026 Tony Awards red carpet, Peters seemingly confirmed those rumors. “Well I heard — Did you hear? — that Cynthia Erivo is going to be coming back in Passion,” she told New York. “It was announced somewhere, that’s how I know.” She then added that Erivo’s co-star in this new production would be Groff. Vulture has reached out to reps for Erivo and Groff to see if anyone wants to announce some stuff somewhere.

Passion is based on Ettore Scola’s 1981 film Passione d’Amore, itself inspired by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti’s 1869 novel Fosca. Set during the unification of Italy, it’s about a soldier who falls in love with the titular Fosca, the epileptic cousin of his commanding officer. The show opened on Broadway in 1994, with Jere Shea as Giorgio and Donna Murphy as Fosca. Per the rumor, this new version would be done by current revival “It” boy Jamie Lloyd. But he’s got to get Evita over here first.

Edit in an update to the Vulture article:

However, his [Groff’s] rep has told Vulture this not accurate from his side. Erivo’s reps have yet to respond.

Bernadette Peters Has a Passion for That Cynthia Erivo Rumor

Bethy Squires

Folks, you heard it here first. Or at least this is the first time you’re hearing it from Bernadette Peters. Since last week, rumors have been swirling that Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Groff would be starring in a new Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion. On the 2026 Tony Awards red carpet, Peters seemingly confirmed those rumors. “Well I heard — Did you hear? — that Cynthia Erivo is going to be coming back in Passion,” she told New York. “It was announced somewhere, that’s how I know.” She then added that Erivo’s co-star in this new production would be Groff. Vulture has reached out to reps for Erivo and Groff to see if anyone wants to announce some stuff somewhere.

Passion is based on Ettore Scola’s 1981 film Passione d’Amore, itself inspired by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti’s 1869 novel Fosca. Set during the unification of Italy, it’s about a soldier who falls in love with the titular Fosca, the epileptic cousin of his commanding officer. The show opened on Broadway in 1994, with Jere Shea as Giorgio and Donna Murphy as Fosca. Per the rumor, this new version would be done by current revival “It” boy Jamie Lloyd. But he’s got to get Evita over here first.

Jonathan Groff Wanted a Sofa He Could Canoodle on in His Manhattan Apartment

The Tony Award–winning actor teamed up with AD100 designer Leyden Lewis for his tailor-made Greenwich Village apartment

By Ingrid Abramovitch

Photography by Kelly Marshall

June 5, 2026

Last weekend, actor Jonathan Groff was enjoying a morning at home in his newly decorated Greenwich Village apartment, offering a virtual tour of the objects he treasures most. Nearly every piece carries a personal story. “The coffee table is from Florence, where I came out when I was 23,” he says. “I love its colors.”

From the obvious joy he takes in his environment, it is hard to believe that for most of his life, Groff lived like a squatter. “My friends would joke that it was ‘serial killer living’,” says Groff, who earlier this spring ended a Tony-award-winning turn as the 1950s chart-topper Bobby Darin in Just in Time, and who was recently named to the TIME100 list of the most influential people of 2026. “All I had was a mattress on the floor and stacks of books. I could live that way and be totally content.”

But in 2022, the actor bought his current apartment and discovered that designing a home could be as creative as stepping into a role, an epiphany sparked by meeting—through an acquaintance of his best friend, actor Lea Michele—the Brooklyn-based AD100 designer Leyden Lewis. The connection was immediate. “From the minute I met Leyden, I knew he was the right person,” Groff says of the designer, who specializes in highly personal spaces for creative clients like the artist Malene Barnett. “He had a kind of openness about him—a collaborative spirit.”

Lewis remembers their initial encounter differently. “The first thing he did was grab and hug me,” he says with a laugh. “When someone pulls you in that way, you think, ‘If I get this job, I am going to give him love’.”

The designer began not with paint chips but by listening to his client. Lewis compared decorating to acting—you are creating a stage for the real-life character you want to express. Groff realized that he wanted a home that reflected both his extroverted and his more introspective sides. The living room, with its sunny wall of windows, was designed for conversation and entertaining, while the moody bedroom in the back, painted chocolate brown, was conceived as a refuge from the demands of public life.

For Broadway actress Krysta Rodriguez, there are all sorts of emotions come Tony Awards time.

The actress, 41, who will begin a stint as Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway later this month, fondly recalls her first Tony’s moment: Performing with the original cast of Spring Awakening back in 2007.

“After we had won Best Musical, we were left on stage for a few minutes and Jonathan Groff came up behind me, grabbed my hand, and said, ‘Just look out and take this in,’” she recalled exclusively to Us Weekly.

EXCLUSIVE: Tony and Grammy-winning actor Jonathan Groff has inked a deal to join Daniel Radcliffe in Trust the Man, a Vietnam War thriller that was announced last February ahead of EFM.

The project, written and to be directed by Will Graham, reunites the duo following their work together in the multiple Tony Award-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which broke house records at The Hudson Theatre several different times throughout its run.

Shooting in New Jersey this summer, Trust the Man follows an ambitious Army Intelligence officer who’s assigned to investigate a decorated soldier with a mysterious past during the Vietnam War. As surveillance and interrogation deepen, the line between loyalty and obsession blurs, leading both men into a dangerous and uncontrollable connection.

No word yet on the role to be played by Groff. Lucas Hedges had previously been set to star opposite Radcliffe but fell off due to scheduling issues.

Producers on Trust the Man include Graham, Tonia Davis and Max Linsky for Invitation Media; Luke Rodgers; and Alex Scott. Jeffrey Soros and Hailey Wierengo are exec producing, with Jess Hackel co-producing. UTA is repping domestic rights, with Neon International handling international.

Both Groff and Radcliffe are coming off of individual recent successes on Broadway. Earlier this spring, Groff completed his Tony-nominated run as Bobby Darin in the jukebox musical Just in Time, which he also produced. Meanwhile, Radcliffe just completed his Tony-nominated run in the one-man show Every Brilliant Thing. Both shows have fully recouped, with Just in Time becoming the first new musical out of the 2024-2025 season to do so.

Currently in production on Lin Manuel Miranda’s film adaptation of the musical Octet, Groff will soon make his Royal Shakespeare Company debut as Rosalind in an all-male production of As You Like It, directed by Daniel Evans. He is represented by CAA.

**

Jonathan’s involvement in the project was first mentioned at WWD last week following an interview with Kata Mara. The article stated:

Mara and her family recently moved back to New York, in time for her to start shooting her next film, “Trust the Man.” The film, which will shoot locally in New Jersey, co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff. She also stars in Werner Herzog’s next film alongside sister Rooney Mara. “ It’s been quite a crazy year of press and things coming out, and it’s nice to just sort of take a breath with the family and the kids,” she added.

@thedrewbarrymoreshow @leamichele on her friendship with Jonathan Groff 💛

Bobby Darin Musical Reaches a Rare Broadway Milestone: Profit

“Just in Time,” which for a year starred Jonathan Groff, is the first new musical from last season to make money for investors.

By Michael Paulson

“Just in Time,” an exuberant biomusical about the short-lived midcentury pop star Bobby Darin, has accomplished an increasingly rare feat on Broadway: profitability.

The show’s producers said in an interview that they have recouped their $12.5 million capitalization costs — the amount of money that it took to develop the show and open it on Broadway. That means the production can repay the investors and begin sharing profits with them.

The musical, featuring Darin hits including “Mack the Knife,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover,” starred Jonathan Groff for its first year, and his talent, likability, and popularity made it a very hot ticket. During Groff’s final week, in late March, the show grossed more than $2 million; the best seats were selling for $1,477 each and the average ticket price was $362, which vastly exceeded the industry average for that week, which was $131.

The grosses have come back down to earth since Groff’s departure — he was succeeded by Matthew Morrison (“Glee”) and then Jeremy Jordan (“The Great Gatsby”). But it is still earning more than it costs to run most weeks; it was sold out last week, and the show’s producers say they hope it will continue to run indefinitely. The show, produced by Tom Kirdahy, Robert Ahrens and John Frost, is also planning a North American tour, starting next summer.

The success of “Just in Time” was not a foregone conclusion. The show opened in April 2025 to low expectations from an industry that thought Darin, who died in 1973 at the age of 37, was no longer a famous enough subject to sell tickets. Reviews were mostly positive, but The New York Times was lukewarm, praising Groff but calling the show “a quasi-concert” with “narrative arthritis.” The show was not nominated for the best musical Tony Award; it was nominated in six other categories, and won zero.

“The industry missed the boat on this one,” Kirdahy said, “but the audience didn’t.”

The show is running at one of Broadway’s smallest houses, the Circle in the Square Theater, which has 690 seats wrapping around the show’s nightclub-like set. The theater size limits its box office potential, but the production’s capitalization costs, as well as its weekly running costs, are substantially lower than most, in part because it has just 11 onstage actors and 11 musicians, which is fewer than at many Broadway musicals.

“We exercised a lot of fiscal discipline along the way, to be really candid,” Kirdahy said. “The fact that we were in a small theater and have been able to make it work and keep it running tells us that we’re doing something right, and we fully intend on continuing to do so.”

“Just in Time,” which has been running for 14 months, is the first new musical from Broadway’s 2024-2025 season to become profitable; none of the current season’s new musicals have achieved that milestone.

Broadway musicals have always been enormously risky investments, but that has become even more true since the pandemic. The only other new musicals to open since the pandemic and become profitable are “MJ,” “Six,” “& Juliet,” “The Outsiders,” and “Kimberly Akimbo,” which announced recently that, although it did not make back its money on Broadway, it was able to pay back its capitalization costs and return a small profit thanks to a successful tour.

“Just in Time” has an unusual history: It started in 2018 as part of the long-running Lyrics and Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Ted Chapin, then running the series, had seen an earlier Darin musical, “Dream Lover,” produced by Frost in Australia; he thought a different approach might work better, and brought the idea to Groff, who signed on after watching Darin clips on YouTube.

Julian Shapiro-Barnum has hosted some massive talent on his viral web series, but two guests stand out from the rest — at least according to his troupe of kid collaborators.

The content creator, 26, made his name by moderating adorably candid conversations between stars and children on Recess Therapy, and he invites A-listers to lead a classroom of young students on Celebrity Substitute. He looked back on the best of his digital footprint while speaking with PEOPLE at the 2026 YouTube Brandcast Upfront on Wednesday, May 13.

Octech.

Bantering for Arts Education with Jonathan Groff and Jane Lynch

UCSB Arts & Lectures Fundraiser is a Charming Evening for a Great Cause

By Leslie Dinaberg

It’s great to be in the room where it happens — not just for Hamilton, but when its Tony Award–winning star Jonathan Groff comes to town.

Jonathan Groff and Jane Lynch | Photo: Isaac Hernandez

It’s not often you see a high-end fundraiser so directly connected to the cause it supports, but last week’s benefit for UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Arts Education — held at the Rosewood Miramar Beach and formally titled “An Evening of Song and Conversation with Jonathan Groff” moderated by Jane Lynch — was a special one for not just the paying customers and the lucky working media, but for the San Marcos High School Madrigal singers, who not only got to perform at the beginning of the event, but the teens got to spend a few hours beforehand with the man who was recently included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2026.

In addition to the main stage performances it presents, as A&L Executive Director Meghan Bush explained in her introduction, “Arts and Lectures also presents more than 150 education events every year for more than 30,000 students and community members across Santa Barbara County, all the way from Carpinteria up to Guadalupe, with the very same artists and speakers that you see on the main stage. And we invest significant resources, both financial and human, to ensure that this access is possible, that the goal of truly making the arts accessible for all is not just something we say. We walk the walk.”

Following a filet mignon dinner, Jim Nye the Auction Guy led the crowd through a short live auction and a lively paddle raise before the eagerly awaited Groff and Lynch took the stage together.

Jonathan Groff and San Marcos High School students | Photo: David Bazemore