#cody smith

The episode was recorded on 24 September, before the death of Gavin Creel. The hosts are Andrew Chappelle, who worked with Jonathan on Hamilton, and Cody Rigsby. Highlights:

Jonathan talks about Cody Smith, his first boyfriend, and says they are still close. They met during 'Bat Boy' and Cody is six years older. "And I love him."

Jonathan talked about his plans to transform '& Sons Steakeasy' (currently a restaurant) back into the gay bar where Barbra Streisand first sang (previously discussed in an interview). He would change the name of the restaurant to 'The Lion' (its original name) and make the upstairs a gay bar and call it BARbra. He has never met Barbra.

Cody talks about meeting Ru Paul that day. Jonathan says he would love to be on Drag Race. He also said he was with Cody (a Peloton instructor) 'on' the bike, crying, during Covid "you are a light".

Jonathan went on a silent meditation retreat after 'Merrily We Roll Along' closed. He has now done three Vipassana meditation reteats in Quebec, Lava Hot Springs Idaho and Massachusetts and gave up his phone for the duration. "With your breath, your demons, a lot of things and yourself... giving shared bathrooms and roommates... The presence you get from being silent, and just with your breath all day is kind of incredible." Jonathan agreed that it was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

Jonathan says he still deletes text messages after replying to them. He says it started from a break-up when he was 24 or 25 [likely Gavin Creel] "and I kept Googling this person, I kept re-reading our texts over and over and over again and I was like, 'Groff, you've got to let go of re-reading everything over and over again. The good, the bad and the everything in between. I need to delete this chain. Let it go.' And then I thought, why am I holding on to any conversation?" He says he's slow at getting back to people, but usually responds (but can respond to a joke a month later).

Anna Spoerre at Missouri Independent, via KCUR:

The new law will go into effect Aug. 28. Planned Parenthood, Democratic lawmakers and health organizations say the ban will cause the most harm to low-income Missourians who rely on the clinics for contraceptives, STI testing, cancer screenings and more.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has signed legislation limiting Planned Parenthood’s ability to serve low-income patients at a ceremony in his Capitol office Thursday. The new law, which will go into effect Aug. 28, will end Medicaid reimbursements to any health centers affiliated with abortion providers. In Missouri, the law would apply to Planned Parenthood. “This is something Republicans have been working for years, since we captured the majority,” said state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican who sponsored a version of the legislation. She added: “It’s a huge victory. Missouri has a long history of being a pro-life state.”

Nearly every abortion, with exceptions for medical emergencies, has been illegal in Missouri since 2022. However, the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics have continued to operate, providing services such as contraceptive care, STI testing, cancer screenings and wellness checks.

Missouri Republicans have argued that no additional money should be going to Planned Parenthood, since Missouri’s locations are affiliated with clinics in Kansas and Illinois, where abortion is legal and where many Missourians travel for the procedure. Democrats, Planned Parenthood and other health institutes have argued that the bill would cause the most harm to Missouri’s most vulnerable population, who may be forced to find a new provider. But the state’s public health safety net is already strained and will have a difficult time absorbing the thousands of displaced patients. Two weeks ago, the Missouri House approved the legislation, originally filed by Republican state Rep, Cody Smith of Carthage, though it did so without approving an emergency clause which would have put the bill into effect immediately upon the governor’s signing.

Coleman’s version of the bill was blocked by a Democratic filibuster in February. A second filibuster by Senate Democrats in April was abandoned after 11 hours when Republicans agreed to remove a provision that would have ended contracts with organizations founded by eugenicists. Missouri Republicans have twice before tried to pass a similar restriction through the state budget, attempts that were ruled unconstitutional by state courts.

[...] MO HealthNet, the state’s Medicaid program, serves low-income and disabled citizens and has long banned funding for abortion, with limited exceptions.

For Steve

                        Remember when we almost drowned in ’03, the woods            so thick we only knew the rainstorm by sound of thunder and violence of the creek, how every day I’d take you to the Stop-N-Go

                        for your case of Natty Lights? Think back to summertime,            when after lunch you’d pull your shirt off and wring it in your hands and count off one beer, wring some more, two beers, how in July you’d sweat

                        all the way through last night’s binge. Think back to when            we chopped paths across hardwood bottoms for skidders to plow makeshift roads for Justiss Oil pumpjacks to suck black snot the earth

                        doesn’t blow. I wanted to call in sick every day, to feel            the sunrise through my bedroom pane instead of the company truck’s windshield. But this isn’t about that. What was I? Eighteen? Drinking

                        creamy coffee the color of soupy dishwater, the callouses            of my hands sanding the white Styrofoam cup, whiskey from a flask stirred into yours. I grew to welcome the start of a day filing blades, the rhythm

                        I’d find scraping down, down, up and over. I didn’t care            like you did for squaring drill sites with double-knots of orange flagging for the loggers, how we kneeled, panting in the dirt, how you would pan your head

                         to take inventory of the beech and white oaks rooted inside            the flagged-off square. I don’t know what it mattered, Steve, which tree we marked for loggers to fell, which sapling we ourselves chopped

                        with machetes. Did the thicket not return what we gave?            Did the thorn limbs and briars not cut your flesh into estuaries of brackish pink creeks of sweat and blood? Nothing changes much,

                        does it, Steve? I’m filing a brush hook’s edge for the first time            in years and still hear you yelling at me, Not like that, Smith. Just give that damn thing to me. We spent our days counting off paces, eyeballing

                        a hundred yards within a few feet, but I don’t think I have            the same distance in me. If I count off these paces, where does a record go? Those days, I dreamt that John the Revelator mistook

                        us for Death, the old Chevy a pale horse, us wheeling those blades            through chokecherry and wild honey locust, water vines crawling behind us. But I don’t know of any Hell that followed that wasn’t there before. I never

                        learned much as a surveyor that I didn’t already know:            how calloused hands have a way of smoothing wood, or else how there’s markers all over this country, how sometimes a fence is all we have to pass down.

The link above from Niki Boyer Swatski on Facebook includes Jonathan’s full speech at the Lancaster Pride event - the video posted by Lancaster Online on YouTube included some cuts.

In the video Jonathan talks more about the early gay mentors in his life and his first love Cody Smith, who remains a friend and was at the Gala. A short clip from the video is below, and also a photo with Jonathan and Cody, posted by Meghan McLane.

Jonathan Groff spent part of his Thanksgiving weekend supporting local theater in Lancaster County.

Groff, a Tony Award-winning actor and Ronks native, attended Prima Theatre's Friday, Nov. 29, performance of "Illumination." Groff was there with longtime friend Cody Smith, who directed the show.

“The theater, the singers, the musicians, the costumes, the choreography—it’s all so beautifully done,” Groff said after the show, according to a news release from Prima. Groff was in town visiting family.

“I looked over, and Jonathan had good tears three times," Smith said in the release. "He said it’s just perfect to put you in the holiday spirit.”

Before the show, Groff dined at the Belvedere Inn.

“I hadn’t been there since I was probably 15 years old,” Groff said about the Belvedere in the release.

After "Illumination," Groff met the cast and crew and posed for photos.