B'way/Off-B'way Reviews: Just in Time; Floyd Collins; All the World's a Stage

Jonathan Groff in Just in Time.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

The 2024-25 Broadway season closes out with a pair of wildly divergent musicals featuring stunning star turns by two of the musical theater’s brightest stars. Jonathan Groff is a true triple threat, singing, dancing, and acting his ass off as the tragically short-lived legendary crooner Bobby Darin in Just in Time while Jeremy Jordan goes to the opposite extreme, delivering an inspiring vocal and dramatic performance as a Kentucky cave explorer trapped in one position underground in Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Floyd Collins. While Groff and Jordan are flawless, their shows vary in intent and execution. Just in Time is pure entertainment while Floyd Collins is muddled in its messaging.

Christine Cornish, Jonathan Groff,
and Julia Grondin in Just in Time.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

The creatives behind Just in Time could have built the show following a familiar blueprint. Bobby Darin was a magnetic pop superstar who briefly challenged Sinatra and Presley as king of all media. He was a teen-idol recording and movie star in his 20s, but his weak heart lead to an early death at 37. Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver’s book is somewhat melodramatic, but focuses on celebrating Darin’s phenomenal talent, largely with humor. Their clever format stages Darin’s meteoric rise and tragic fall as a floor show (Ted Chapin is credited with the original concept). Set designer Derek McLane has exquisitely refitted the Circle in the Square as a glamorous 1950s nightclub complete with cabaret-style tables. Director Alex Timbers and choreographer Shannon Lewis have staged the proceedings with speed and ingenuity. Scenes of Darin’s chaotic show-biz and personal life are interspersed with spectacular numbers he made famous such as the title tune from Bells Are Ringing, “Mack the Knife,” “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover,” beautifully orchestrated by Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber. 

In order for this gimmick to work, you need a supremely gifted star and Groff is it. He grabs the audience from his first breathtaking entrance, emerging from beneath McLane’s gorgeous bandstand on an elevator. He is introduced not as Darin, but in his own person. Then he jokes about the setting (“I love playing the basement of Wicked”), explains the premise, and then seamlessly launches into the first exuberant number, establishing this will be a fun evening, not a dark dirge. Groff is amazing, soulfully and energetically putting across song after song, executing Lewis’ razzle-dazzle dance steps and delivering a fully-realized portrait of the charming, brash, arrogant, yet lovable Darin.

B'way Update: Lincoln Center Season

Christopher Innvar, Jason Danieley, and
Theresa McCarthy in the 1996
production of Floyd Collins at
Playwrights Horizons
Credit: Joan Marcus

Lincoln Center Theater has announced its 2024-25 season for its Vivian Beaumont, Mitzi Newhouse and Clara Tow Theaters. LCT's Broadway season at the Vivian Beaumont begins with the previously announced MCNEAL by Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar and starring Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut. (previews Sept. 5 and opens Sept. 30). 

The Broadway premiere of Floyd Collins follows with an opening of April 21 and previews beginning March 27. The musical about the real-life story of the titular cave explorer had its world premiere at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in 1994. It was followed by the off-Broadway debut at Playwrights Horizons in 1996 where it won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical. Music and lyrics are by Adam Guettel whose Light in the Piazza also played the Beaumont. Tina Landau provides the book, additional lyrics and direction, as she did for the PH production. 

Floyd Collins is based on the true story of a cave explorer in Kentucky, 1925. While chasing a dream of fame and fortune by turning Sand Cave into a tourist attraction, Floyd Collins himself becomes the attraction when he gets trapped 200 feet underground. Alone but for sporadic contact with the outside world, including his brother Homer, Floyd fights for his sanity – and, ultimately, his life – as the rescue effort above explodes into the first genuine media circus. Reporters and gawkers from across the country descend on the property, fueling the hysteria and manipulating the nation into holding its collective breath.