Jonathan Groff Biography

Jonathan Drew Groff (born March 26, 1985) is an American singer and stage and screen actor. He originated the lead role of Melchior Gabor in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening, for which he earned a 2007 Tony Award nomination. He regularly appears on Off-Broadway stage in plays and musicals and he received critical acclaim for his role in London West End production of Deathtrap. His other theater credits include Hair as Claude, Red, Fame, and an Off-Broadway production of Prayer for My Enemy by Craig Lucas for which he earned an Obie Award. He is also known for his role as Jesse St. James on the FOX series Glee where he reunited with his Spring Awakening costar Lea Michele.

Early life

Groff was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to a Methodist mother - Julie, a physical education teacher - and a Mennonite father - Jim, a harness horse trainer and driver. He has one older brother, David. Of his upbringing, he has said "My mother"?s side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values"?sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school. But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn"?t want to be." He graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 2003 and was going to attend Carnegie Mellon University until he booked his first professional job in New York City, the Broadway musical In My Life.

Career

Groff booked his first acting job in 2005 as a swing/dance captain for the musical "In My Life" by Joseph Brooks. The musical was about a boy with Tourette's Syndrome, and Groff understudied the lead part. He never performed in the role. Groff originated the role of Melchior Gabor in the Broadway production of Spring Awakening. He played the role from the musical's Broadway debut on December 10, 2006 through May 18, 2008. He also played the same role in the original Off Broadway production earlier during the summer of 2006. Groff also was in the National Tour of The Sound of Music as Rolf, and appeared in Fame at the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts. In April 2007, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for his role in Spring Awakening. In May 2007, he was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance, with the award eventually going to David Hyde Pierce.

He played the recurring role of Henry Mackler on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. His storyline about a school shooting on the long-running soap opera was nixed due to the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007, and he is no longer on the show. Before performing on the Broadway stage, Jonathan was a performer at The Ephrata Performing Arts Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. There he portrayed such characters as Edgar in Bat Boy: The Musical and Ugly in Honk!. Groff played as Claude in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Hair, which ran July 22 through August 31, 2008. He also appeared as Michael Lang in Ang Lee's major motion picture, Taking Woodstock. Groff has appeared in the Off-Broadway production of Prayer for My Enemy by Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, Light in the Piazza) about the consequences the Iraq war has had on an American family. In August 2009, Groff performed The Bacchae as Dionysus as a part of the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park.

He was guest starring on Glee as Jesse St. James, the male lead of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline for eight of the back nine episodes. He also serves as a love interest for his former Spring Awakening co-star Lea Michele's character, Rachel Berry. Newsweek critic Ramin Satoodeh stated that Groff was unconvincing in the role of the straight Jesse ("he seems more like your average theater queen, a better romantic match for Kurt than Rachel"). Groff's performance was defended by Glee creator Ryan Murphy and guest star Kristin Chenoweth, both of whom described Satoodeh's essay as homophobic; it was also condemned by GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios.

In August 2010, he made his West End debut in Deathtrap, at the Nol Coward Theatre in a production directed by Matthew Warchus. Groff returned to Glee at the end of the second season, where his character tried to ask Rachel for forgiveness. He returned to the show on May 10 to finish out the remainder of the second season. Despite leaving the show for the first part of its third season, Groff returned to Glee in Saturday Night Glee-ver as the coach of his former Glee club, Vocal Adrenaline. From August to October 2012, Groff appeared as Ian Todd in the second and final season of the Starz TV series Boss.

Groff played Ken in the Center Theatre Group's production of the Tony Award winning play Red, alongside Alfred Molina reprising his role as painter Mark Rothko. The show ran from August 1 to September 9, 2012. In March 2013, Groff and Molina reprised their roles for six more performances of the play, this time in the L.A. Theatre Works. These performances, like all that take place on LATW, were recorded to be broadcast on radio.

Groff is scheduled to voice one of the lead roles in Disney's upcoming animated feature Frozen. His character, Kristoff, is described as a rugged mountain man. The movie is set to premiere November 27, 2013. Groff stars as Patrick, a gay video-game developer, in HBO's comedy Looking, which as of May 2013 has an eight-episode initial order. In April 2013, Groff joined another HBO production, playing Craig in the TV movie adaptation of the Larry Kramer play, The Normal Heart.

Personal life

In October 2009, Groff told Broadway.com during the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., that he is "gay and proud". Groff was seen with actor Zachary Quinto multiple times since 2010. In September 2012, Quinto confirmed that he was in a relationship with Groff. In July 2013, it was reported that the two had broken up.

Groff is a cousin of James Wolpert, a contestant on the fifth season of The Voice.

Theatre credits

Year	Show	Role	Production
2005	Fame	Nick Piazza	North Shore Music Theatre May 31 - June 19, 2005
2005	In My Life	Dance Captain / Swing / Understudy	Music Box Theatre October 20 - December 11, 2005
2006	Spring Awakening	Melchior Gabor	Atlantic Theatre Company May 19 - August 5, 2006
2006	Spring Awakening	Melchior Gabor	Eugene O'Neill Theatre December 10, 2006 - May 18, 2008
2007	Hair (40th anniversary concert)	Claude Hooper Bukowski	Delacorte Theatre September 22 - 24, 2007
2008	Hair	Claude Hooper Bukowski	Delacorte Theatre July 22 - August 16, 2008
2008	Prayer for My Enemy	Billy Noone	Playwrights Horizons November 14 - December 21, 2008
2009	The Singing Forest	Gray Korankyi / Walter Rieman	The Public Theater April 27 - May 17, 2009
2009	The Bacchae	Dionysus	Delacorte Theatre August 11-30, 2009
2010	Deathtrap	Clifford Anderson	Nol Coward Theatre August 21, 2010 - January 15, 2011
2011	The Submission	Danny Larsen	Lucille Lortel Theatre September 8 - October 22, 2011
2012	Red	Ken	Mark Taper Forum August 1 - September 9, 2012
2013	Red	Ken	L.A. Theatre Works March 14 - 17, 2013
2013	The Pirates of Penzance (concert)	Frederic	Delacorte Theatre June 10, 2013

Other works include a national tour of The Sound of Music as Rolf, as well as Ugly in Honk! and Edgar in Bat Boy: The Musical, both at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center.

Filmography

Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	One Life to Live	Henry Mackler	Recurring guest star, 11 episodes
2008	Pretty/Handsome	Patrick Fitzpayne	Pilot
2010-2012	Glee	Jesse St. James	Recurring guest star, 12 episodes
2012	The Good Wife	Jimmy Fellner	Episode: "Live from Damascus"
2012	Boss	Ian Todd	Series regular, 10 episodes
2014	The Normal Heart	Craig Donner	TV movie
2014	Looking	Patrick	Series lead
Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	Taking Woodstock	Michael Lang
2010	'	Louis Weichmann
2010	Twelve Thirty	Jeff
2011	Glee Encore	Jesse St. James	Archive footage from Glee
2013	C.O.G.	Samuel	Lead Role
2013	Frozen	Kristoff (voice)

Discography

Cast recordings

• Spring Awakening (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (2006)
• Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna (2010)
• Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers (2010)
• Glee: The Music, Journey to Regionals (2010)
• Glee: The Music, The Complete Season One (2010)
• Glee: The Music, Volume 6 (2011)

Other recordings

• Dreaming Wide Awake: The Music of Scott Alan (2007) as featured soloist on the track "Now"

Audiobooks

• Broadway Nights by Seth Rudetsky (2008) as Mason

Featured singles

Single	Year	Peak chart positions					Album
		US	AUS	CAN	IRL	UK
"Highway to Hell" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)	2010	"?	"?	88	"?	89	Glee: The Music, The Complete Season One
"Run Joey Run" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)		61	64	45	12	27
"Another One Bites the Dust" (Glee Cast)		79	"?	53	41	101
"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Glee Cast)		"?	"?	"?	"?	"?
"Hello" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)		35	79	37	31	35	Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)		16	28	17	3	9
"Like a Virgin" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)		87	99	83	47	58	Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna
"Like a Prayer" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)		27	28	27	2	16
"Rolling in the Deep" (Glee Cast featuring Jonathan Groff)	2011	29	"?	"?	"?	"?	Glee: The Music, Volume 6
""?" denotes releases that did not chart.

Other appearances

• In February 2011, Jonathan appeared in two promotional videos for his brother Dave's commercial kitchen supply site, WEBstaurantstore.com. The first was one promoting the company's Facebook fanpage and contests for its customers. The second was a special Valentine's Day video in which he made a martini and promoted products sold on the site. The martini he made was a special recipe created especially for Jonathan called the "She Loves Me Martini", for the video by Dee Brun, "The Cocktail Deeva".

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2007	Tony Award	Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical	Spring Awakening
	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Actor in a Musical
	Drama League Award	Distinguished Performance
	Theatre World Award
	Broadway.com Audience Choice Award	Favorite Leading Actor in a Broadway Musical
		Favorite Breakthrough Performance (Male)
		Favorite Onstage Pair (shared with Lea Michele)
		Favorite Ensemble Cast
2008	Grammy Award	Best Musical Show Album (featured soloist)
2009	Obie Award	Performance	Prayer for My Enemy The Singing Forest
2011	WhatsOnStage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award	The Dewynters London Newcomer of the Year	Deathtrap
2012	BroadwayWorld.com Los Angeles Award	Best Leading Actor in a Play (Touring Production)	Red