Check out Broadway.com’s latest interview with Jonathan:

As kids all over America head back to school, Broadway.com decided to ask our favorite Broadway stars to look back at their own years in the classroom, sharing memories of favorite subjects and activities and describing their younger selves. Jonathan Groff got his big break as earnest, rebellious student Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening, and it sounds like the real-life Groff sometimes took things just as seriously!

What advice would you give to your school-age self?
Enjoy it! School seems so life and death when you are in it, and while it can be stressful and a lot of work, try to enjoy your friends and your work as much as possible. It’s over before you know it.

What’s your favorite back-to-school item?
I always loved getting a new journal to write in at the beginning of the school year, anything seemed possible!

What is your most embarrassing school moment?
At the ninth grade formal when I won the swing dancing competition with Emily Fritz. After our victory, the floor cleared and everyone watched us dance. I got overly ambitious and tried to swing her around my body, I nearly dropped her on the floor, and to prevent her head from hitting, I grabbed her ankles and spun her around in circles. Her dress flew above her head, and everyone saw her red thong. They called me Jonathong.

In which extracurricular activities did you participate?
Drama was the big one. I spent a brief period of time on the cross country team. And one year I was class president. But it was all about the drama program for me.

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Make sure to see Jonathan in The Submission. First show was yesterday. To book tickets and for more information, visit MCC Theatre

Jonathan hanged out with Lea yesterday after the first show. Lea tweeted:

Best way to end the night… Sleepover with my boo… J Groff
16 hours ago

Looks like its going to be a beautiful day in the city. Coffee on the steps of my apartment w/ J Groff… Doesn’t get better than this:)
5 hours ago

Here’s a video of Jonathan at stage door after the show:

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In Patina’s latest interview with Broadway.com, she talks about her friendship with Jonathan and going to see him in his new play “The Submission”.

You may have been lonesome in London, but I love that you and Jonathan Groff always seem to be in the same place at the same time.
I know! He’s one of my best friends. We really just get each other. Ever since Hair, we’ve been so close. We were on the West End for six months and then he moved to L.A., but now he’s back doing [off-Broadway’s The Submission] so we’re together again. It’s great.

Will you get a chance to see him in The Submission?
I get to go on opening night because it’s our night off from Sister Act! I will be there supporting him.

Did he come to visit Sister Act when Lea Michele and the Glee cast showed up this spring?
He sure did! Amber Riley actually tweeted that Sister Act is her favorite musical. How cool is that?

She’s got good taste. Who’s been your favorite guest at the Broadway Theatre?
I think [the Glee] guys were really cool. Having Obama at our show was pretty amazing, but crazy. Everybody was on edge. Joan Rivers came to see the show too. She loved it and had nothing but nice things to say.

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Jonathan talks about working out and staying in shape for his new show!

Jonathan Groff Talks About Staying in Shape for Off-Broadway’s The Submission (Video)

Tony Award nominee Jonathan Groff will make his way back to the New York stage when Jeff Talbott’s The Submission debuts in its world-premiere production Off-Broadway, beginning Sept. 8.

In The Submission, Groff plays Danny Larsen, a playwright who writes a play under the female pen name Shaleeha G’ntamobi. When his drama about an African-American family is accepted into the nation’s preeminent theatre festival, he is faced with a multitude of difficult decisions.

Here, the show’s star talks about the need to stay in shape when having to perform eight shows a week, as well as his encounter with P90X. Also, in preparation for The Submission, which officially opens at the Lucille Lortel Theatre Sept. 27, Groff told Playbill.com that he rides his bike to rehearsal. In Playbill’s Brief Encounter with Groff, he said, “I rode my bike here today to rehearsal. I just love the city. I love the theatre community here. I love the Off-Broadway community here, and I am so pumped to be doing this play.”

To watch the interview with Groff, look below:

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New photo of Jonathan and the cast of “The Submission”.

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Press Release announcing that Jonathan will be singing the National Anthem and signing autographs at Harrah’s Casino & Racetrack on Sunday, August 21st. Thanks to Edward for the information.

GLEE STAR TO APPEAR AT HARRAH’S CHESTER CASINO & RACETRACK
Super Stakes Sunday will also feature Fast Horses, Huge Purses and Big Fun

CHESTER, PA – August 16, 2011 – Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack will welcome a member of the hit television show Glee, Jonathan Groff, on Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 1:30pm for the fourth annual Super Stakes Sunday. Jonathan is best known for portraying the character of Jesse St. James on the Emmy and Golden Globe award winning show, Glee. Jonathan will be singing the national anthem to kick off live harness racing for the richest day in racing at Harrah’s Chester which has a 2:00pm post time and total purses exceeding $2.4 million. There will also be a meet and greet opportunity with several harness drivers at 12:15pm.

Jonathan is the son of longtime Pennsylvania harness driver and trainer, Jim Groff. Jim is a 38 year veteran of the harness racing industry, and an avid driver at Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack. Both Jim and Jonathan are from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Jonathan was nominated for a Tony award in the category of Best Leading Actor in a musical for his 2007 performance in play Spring Awakening. Jonathan is also known for being close friends with Glee breakout star, Lea Michele.
(more…)

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I’ve added the screencaps for Jonathan’s movie “The Conspirator” to the gallery. All caps are in HD Blu-Ray quality.

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Jonathan’s Deathtrap co star, Simon Russell Beale, talks about working with Jonathan in this recent Broadway.com interview:

While you’re performing Bluebird, your former Deathtrip co-star Jonathan Groff will also be off-Broadway in The Submission. How was it working with him?
It was terrific. He’s a marvelous actor. He’s a very natural stage actor in terms of his ability to use language and the physicality of language, which is great for someone—I want to say so young, but really I’m just so old [laughs].

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Jonathan Groff, a recurring guest star on TV’s “Glee” and a Tony nominee for Spring Awakening, returns to the stage in The Submission, an edgy new Off-Broadway comedy.

Just when you thought the busy and popular twentysomething stage actor Jonathan Groff might be pulled permanently to the West Coast — where he’s known for appearances in the films “Taking Woodstock” and “The Conspirator,” and has starred as Jesse St. James on the hit TV series “Glee” — he’s back in New York City this summer to rehearse and star in the world-premiere Off-Broadway play, The Submission, by Jeff Talbott. Walter Bobbie directs MCC Theater’s limited run Sept. 8-Oct. 23.

The Tony Award-nominated actor who created radical teenager Melchior Gabor in Off-Broadway and Broadway’s Spring Awakening now splits his time between Los Angeles and New York City, following his six-month 2010 stint in the London revival of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap. The Submission, a racially-charged work in which he plays a cocky young playwright, represents a return to Off-Broadway following Obie Award-winning appearances in Prayer for My Enemy and The Singing Forest, proving that he’s interested in an eclectic career — stage, TV, films. We got a few minutes with him on his first day of rehearsal for The Submission, in which he appears with Will Rogers, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Rutina Wesley.

Can you tell me a little bit about your character in The Submission?
Jonathan Groff: I play Danny…a playwright who writes a play about the African American community, and writes it under the ghost name of an African American woman. [His play] gets produced — and drama ensues. The play is really intense. It’s really surprising. It deals a lot with race and gender and racism [issues] — I think it’s a conversation-starter, this play.
This role, an undercover playwright, is something different for you, yes? Danny is very unlike recent roles you’ve played — such as Jesse St. James on “Glee” or Melchior in Spring Awakening.
JG: I was so excited to play this role for so many reasons, the first of which, is that this character is really flawed, and, I think, sort of walks a tightrope of making good decisions and bad decisions. The idea of going on that journey and justifying his choices that he makes in his life — good and bad — was really exciting for me, and, as an actor, it’s always great to play someone who is passionate and…complicated. On the first read of the play, I was on his side, [and then] I was not on his side. And throughout the whole course of reading it, I thought, “Wow. That is something that I can really sink my teeth into, really get invested in and get really excited about.”
(more…)

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Here’s an interview Broadway.com did with Jonathan talking about Lea Michele, musicals and Glee.

Jonathan Groff on BFF Lea Michele and How He’s ‘Dying to Do Another Musical’

Since making his Broadway mark as romantic hero Melchior Gabor in 2006’s Spring Awakening, Jonathan Groff has, with the exception of a short run in Hair in Central Park, been sticking with plays on stage. After appearing in Central Park in The Bacchae and off-Broadway in Prayer for My Enemy and The Singing Forest, Groff made his West End debut in Deathtrap and is currently preparing to star in The Submission at MCC Theatre beginning September 8. So, is the Tony-nominated actor moving on from musicals for good?

“I’m not making a choice to get away from musicals; I love musicals,” Groff told Broadway.com at a press event for the new play. “This is just sort of how the cookie has crumbled for the moment. When I’m looking for a new project, I like to do things that make me a little bit anxious and nervous, and I guess lately that’s been plays. But I’m dying to do another musical. Someday soon I hope.”

Maybe Groff has been getting his musical fix on FOX hit Glee, where he’s gotten to show off his singing chops as the uber-talented and uber-jerky Jesse St. James, star of glee club Vocal Adrenaline.

“It brings me great joy,” he said of the character, an unabashedly bad boyfriend to Rachel Berry (his Spring Awakening co-star Lea Michele), and a far cry from the notoriously nice Groff. “The writing on that show, especially when it’s mean, is so biting and funny and bizarre, and I love it. It’s really fun,” he says. But with The Submission gearing up for a fall run (read: prime television filming season) can Groff make a return to the halls of McKinley High?

“I never know what to expect from Glee because everything happens really last minute,” he explained. “So I don’t know if The Submission is taking me away from Glee or not; that’s all yet to be determined. Whether or not Groff makes a return to Glee, he hopes to catch up with pal Michele soon. “We’ve been in different parts of the world recently so we haven’t gotten to spend much time together” he said of his longtime BFF, adding that the pair still catches up via telephone. “She’s going to come and see [The Submission], I hope!”

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