Lancaster-born Jonathan Groff thanks teacher in his Tony Award acceptance speech
The 'Merrily We Roll Along' star honored his Pa. roots as he celebrated his first Tony win.
NEW YORK — Broadway star Jonathan Groff kept tearing up during the 77th Annual Tony Awards at the Lincoln Center on Sunday night. At the end of the night, when he got onstage to accept his award for best performance by a leading actor in a musical for his role in Merrily We Roll Along, he began by shouting out his hometown, Lancaster.
“I grew up in a house surrounded by corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,” said Groff, before thanking his family. “Thank you to all of my teachers back in Pennsylvania, especially Sue Fisher who told me I could do this for a living.”
It was Fisher, Groff’s eighth grade drama teacher, who told him that he had to pursue theater as a career before he even knew that it could be his profession.
It was Groff’s first Tony Award win. He received a nomination for both Spring Awakening in 2007 and Hamilton in 2016. Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along also won best revival of a musical and best orchestrations. Groff’s costar Daniel Radcliffe won best performance by a featured actor in a musical.
In the press room, Groff recounted growing up with a supportive family, including his Mennonite grandfather. He thanked his parents for letting him dress up as Cinderella, Mary Poppins, and Peter Pan. “They took me to see theater even though my parents are jocks — my dad is a horse trader — but they understood passion, because they’re both quite passionate people, and so they saw that I was onto something, and they let it flourish,” said Groff.
Broadway’s biggest night put a special spotlight on other important creators with Pennsylvania and New Jersey connections. Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater took home the 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award, becoming the first theater in Pennsylvania to receive the recognition.
Suffs, the buzzy new musical about South Jersey suffragist Alice Paul, had six nominations and won for best book of a musical and best original score. Both awards went to composer/playwright Shaina Taub, who plays Paul and encouraged everyone to vote in her acceptance speech. Suffs coproducer Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the ceremony, where she introduced the cast’s performance of “Keep Marching.”
» READ MORE: In Tony-nominated ‘Suffs’, girl power comes to Broadway, South Jersey style
While Philadelphia native Leslie Odom Jr. did not win the leading actor award for starring in his acclaimed revival of Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch (he lost to Jeremy Strong in An Enemy of the People), his costar Kara Young took home the award for best performance by a featured actress in a play. She thanked Odom, who was a producer.
“Leslie, you make everything possible. You inspire me so much, you hold so much, and [you hold it as if] it’s weightless,” she said onstage. The play was nominated for six awards.
For best performance by a leading actress in a musical, Maleah Joi Moon, who grew up in Somerset County, N.J., won for her triumphant portrayal of a young Alicia Keys in Hell’s Kitchen. Philadelphia music producer Adam Blackstone was nominated for best orchestrations for his work on the production but lost to Merrily We Roll Along’s Jonathan Tunick.
Philadelphia-raised actor Sky Lakota-Lynch, who graduated from Lansdale’s North Penn High School, made headlines as one of the few Native American actors ever nominated for a Tony Award, for his role as Johnny Cade in The Outsiders.
He was up for best performance by a featured actor in a musical, which he lost to Radcliffe. Lakota-Lynch joined the cast onstage to perform “Tulsa ‘67/Grease Got a Hold” from The Outsiders, which earned 12 nominations and won four awards, including best musical and best direction of a musical.