For the better part of the past two years Jonathan Groff has spent nearly every evening squeezing his athletic physique into high-waisted, skin-tight knickers, knee socks, a fitted blazer and suspenders. His naturally wavy, reddish-brown tresses have been coerced, with a curling iron, a diffuser and an arsenal of gels and sprays, into a perfect, light-catching coif of heartthrob curls. Thus transformed, the Spring Awakening star has stormed the floorboards of Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre as Melchior Gabor, only to drop trou at the end of the first act in a steamy sex scene.
The garment- and product-heavy ritual is a far cry from Groff’s own low-maintenance personal routine. “Lucky Jeans are as fancy as I go,” says the Tony-nominated actor, who, on a recent afternoon, was sporting a blue Old Navy hoodie and a ratty brown baseball cap worn backward. Nonetheless, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native (“It was Amish farm, my house, Amish farm,” he says with a laugh), has become quite the style chameleon. This summer he will be the only cast member keeping his clothes on in the Public Theater’s Central Park production of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. A three-day concert version of the show was staged last September. Groff headlines as Claude, the groundbreaking musical’s conflicted flower child.
“He is a full-blown hippie with long hair, but he’s sort of a poseur hippie,” Groff says. “He doesn’t know who he is or what he believes in.” Groff, 23, has suffered from no such existential crisis. After a year waiting tables in Hell’s Kitchen, he landed an understudy gig in 2005’s In My Life, which led directly to Spring Awakening. And there’s no question the role has gotten under his skin.
“When we were doing the concert, I had the strangest experience: I went directly back into playing Melchior and have never felt so suffocated, because Hair is so free. When I had to put on my knickers and cuffs…I felt so confined in 1891 Germany,” he recalls.
Indeed, 1967 New York is an altogether different stylistic beast. During last fall’s brief dress rehearsal, Groff endured three wig and five shirt changes, including a pale, gauzy Timothy Leary–esque number and a floral Sonny Bono–worthy top. While nothing is yet set in stone for the summer performance, costume designer Michael McDonald and director Diane Paulus temporarily settled on a vintage, over-dyed jade green henley to complement Claude’s red feathered headband, love beads and dirty, ripped jeans covered in handpainted flowers.
“There is absolutely no tie-dyed clothing in my production of Hair,” declares McDonald, who combed the New York Shakespeare Festival’s costume storage facility (and friends’ closets) for vintage pieces like the Gunne Sax dress that the character of Claude’s mother wore in the concert. “We never wanted to resort to cliché,” he says. For the July staging, McDonald plans to remake the more delicate vintage looks to withstand the grueling schedule while still maintaining a sense of authenticity.
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