Bio
Jonathan Groff is an American singer-songwriter and actor best known for his television roles as Jesse St. James on Glee and as Ian Todd on Boss.
Among Groff's other television credits are a guest-starring role on the legal drama The Good Wife. He also has a starring role as Patrick Murray, a video game designer working at Most Dangerous Games and living in the Lower Haight who is recently out of a six-month relationship (with a guy who's now engaged), in the comedy-drama television series Looking.
Groff made his big screen debut in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock. The movie, adapted by James Schamus from the autobiography by Eliot Tibor and Tom Monte, tells the true story of a young man working at his parents' motel in the Catskills, who inadvertently sets in motion the generation-defining concert in the summer of 1969.
In the film, Groff plays Michael Lang, the legendary concert promoter and co-creator of the famed Woodstock Music and Art Festival.
Groff was seen on screen in The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford and starring James McAvoy and Robin Wright. The film tells the story of Mary Surratt, the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln.
Additionally, Groff starred in the independent drama, Twelve-Thirty. Written and directed by Jeff Lipsky and co-starring Mamie Gummer, the film depicts a broken family and the young man who, in the span of a week, becomes entangled in each of their lives.
A young veteran of the theatre, Groff originated the role of Melchior Gabor in the Tony Award-winning musical, Spring Awakening. With music by Duncan Sheik and book & lyrics by Steven Sater, Spring Awakening, based on Frank Wedekind's controversial 1891 play of the same name, concerns a group of teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of their sexuality.
Jonathan's role as Melchior Gabor, the sharp, searching teen, earned him a 2007 Theatre World Award, in addition to Tony, Drama Desk, and Drama League Award nominations.
Groff created the role Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company, prior to reprising the role on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
Following his acclaimed run in Spring Awakening, Groff transitioned into the famed role of Claude in The Public Theater's heralded revival of Hair, the seminal rock musical of the 1960's.
The show, about a tribe of politically active hippies fighting against the Vietnam War draft and living a bohemian life together in New York City, ran as part of The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park series at the Delacorte Theatre, and introduced an entirely new generation of fans to the beloved musical.
Groff also tackled difficult roles in two Off-Broadway plays by acclaimed playwright/screenwriter Craig Lucas, for which he was the recipient of a Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Performance – Prayer for My Enemy, directed by Bartlett Sher, at Playwrights Horizons, and The Singing Forest, co-starring Olympia Dukakis, at the Public Theatre.
Prior to making his West End debut at the Noel Coward Theatre in the heralded revival of Ira Levin's Deathtrap, directed by Matthew Warchus and co-starring legendary stage actor Simon Russell Beale, Groff starred as Dionysus, the God of wine, in the Public Theater's summer staging of Euripides' The Bacchae, helmed by Obie Award-winning director JoAnne Akalaitis and featuring original music by Philip Glass.
Groff also starred on stage opposite Rutina Wesley and Eddie Kaye Thomas in the MCC Theater production of Jeff Talbot's provocative Off-Broadway drama, The Submission, directed by Walter Bobbie.
Groff's additional theatre credits include roles in the Broadway musical, In My Life, and regional tours of The Sound of Music, Fame, Bat Boy, and Honk!.
Groff is a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is openly gay.