“Just in Time,” an exuberant biomusical about the short-lived midcentury pop star Bobby Darin, has accomplished an increasingly rare feat on Broadway: profitability.
The show’s producers said in an interview that they have recouped their $12.5 million capitalization costs — the amount of money that it took to develop the show and open it on Broadway. That means the production can repay the investors and begin sharing profits with them.
The musical, featuring Darin hits including “Mack the Knife,” “Beyond the Sea,” “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover,” starred Jonathan Groff for its first year, and his talent, likability, and popularity made it a very hot ticket. During Groff’s final week, in late March, the show grossed more than $2 million; the best seats were selling for $1,477 each and the average ticket price was $362, which vastly exceeded the industry average for that week, which was $131.
The grosses have come back down to earth since Groff’s departure — he was succeeded by Matthew Morrison (“Glee”) and then Jeremy Jordan (“The Great Gatsby”). But it is still earning more than it costs to run most weeks; it was sold out last week, and the show’s producers say they hope it will continue to run indefinitely. The show, produced by Tom Kirdahy, Robert Ahrens and John Frost, is also planning a North American tour, starting next summer.
The success of “Just in Time” was not a foregone conclusion. The show opened in April 2025 to low expectations from an industry that thought Darin, who died 1973 at the age of 37, was no longer a famous enough subject to sell tickets. Reviews were mostly positive, but The New York Times was lukewarm, praising Groff but calling the show “a quasi-concert” with “narrative arthritis.” The show was not nominated for the best musical Tony Award; it was nominated in six other categories, and won zero.
“The industry missed the boat on this one,” Kirdahy said, “but the audience didn’t.”
The show is running at one of Broadway’s smallest houses, the Circle in the Square Theater, which has 690 seats wrapping around the show’s nightclub-like set. The theater size limits its box office potential, but the production’s capitalization costs, as well as its weekly running costs, are substantially lower than most, in part because it has just 11 onstage actors and 11 musicians, which is fewer than at many Broadway musicals.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
