Just in Time

Just in Time opens with a twist: Jonathan Groff appears onstage as himself, greeting the audience and establishing that he will embody Bobby Darin’s story before fully stepping into the character. The show then flashes back to Darin’s early years in the 1950s: he is a fragile, sickly youth from a modest background who defies expectations to pursue music. As the musical progresses, Groff-as-Darin rises from writing jingles and singing club gigs to pop stardom with hits like “Splish Splash,” “Mack the Knife,” and “Dream Lover.”

Along the way, the production weaves in his relationships with women including Connie Francis and Sandra Dee, family secrets (such as discovering that the woman he believed was his sister was actually his birth mother), and the tensions of fame, health, and creative restlessness. In its final act, the show faces Darin’s mounting physical limitations and the sense that his time is limited—notably, he would die at age 37 of heart complications.

Rather than dwell on tragedy, Just in Time celebrates Darin as a consummate performer who carried an infectious energy, interrogates the intersection of Groff’s own performance identity with Darin’s, and ultimately frames the musical as a love letter to audiences and the magic of live performance.