When Jonathan Groff first began learning his lines to play Rosalind in the RSC’s new staging of , he was struck by one thought: “I think this is the best gift I’ve ever been given.” An accomplished performer, singer and actor, over the course of his two decade career, Groff has been the one giving gifts. There was , the rocking debut that made him a Broadway star. Then , , , and most recently, Just in Time, Groff’s dazzling turn as Bobby Darin at the height of his fame. Soon, he will star in Dave Malloy’s , directed by long-time pal Lin Manuel-Miranda and co-starring Amanda Seyfried and Rachel Zegler, among others. The a capella musical, about eight strangers battling technology addiction, is “hands down the most difficult music I’ve ever attempted to learn”, Groff says.
But first, he’s finally adding the Bard to his CV, making his Shakespearean debut – where else? – in Stratford-upon-Avon at the RSC, playing one of Will’s most beloved heroines in an all-male production of As You Like It. It’s a few weeks out from opening night when we speak, and so far, “it’s been a dream”, Groff says, dialling in from rehearsals in London. He’s taken his first foray into Shakespeare – save for a high school production of – seriously: he memorised the entire play before rehearsals had even begun.
The method makes sense. According to the show’s director Daniel Evans, co-artistic director at the RSC, Rosalind – a role that has previously been taken on by Dames Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and Vanessa Redgrave – speaks more often and more rapidly than any other female character across Shakespeare’s oeuvre. Groff says he needed to have “my mouth around the words” before entering the rehearsal room, so that he could “play tennis” with his fellow actors – Fisayo Akinade as Celia, Elliot Barnes-Worrell as Orlando – once they met. Bear in mind, Groff doesn’t consider himself to be a “super fast memoriser. At first I was like, ‘Whoa!’” It took a lot of work and sleep before his Rosalind began to finally appear.
As Groff puts it, she is “extremely witty and intelligent”. An abridged reminder of the plot: Rosalind, a high born lady of the court, has lost nearly everything; her father, Duke Senior, has been usurped by his brother and banished from the court and her cousin Celia has pretty much inherited the life she once had. She meets and falls in love with Orlando, then gets banished herself and flees to the Forest of Arden, with Celia in tow. In a bid to avoid danger, the two cousins adopt new identities – Rosalind as the young man Ganymede, and Celia as the lowly shepherdess Aliena. Now in disguise, the two girls bump into a lovesick Orlando, who is still pining for Rosalind. Unable to reveal her true identity, “Ganymede” enrols Orlando in a series of “love lessons”, to help him woo the object of his affection. “But because she’s so smart,” Groff says, “she’s able to articulate and talk about [love] while she’s experiencing it, and acting out these different levels of multiplicity.”
While women were not technically banned from acting in the theatre in the 17th century, it was not considered a “place for a woman”. As such, boys and young men often took on female roles – something that has been lingering with Groff and Evans. The latter saw Declan Donnellan’s celebrated 1991 all-male production of the play, with Adrian Lester as Rosalind. “I’m Jonathan… a man playing a woman, playing a man, playing a woman,” Groff ponders. “There’s already a lot of layers there to begin with.”
Gender-swapped plays are nothing new at the RSC, in fact, Groff describes watching such a production of The Taming of the Shrew there in 2019 as a “moment of kismet. I just flipped for it,” he says of seeing Claire Price as “Petruchia”. Groff was so affected by the show that he wrote Price a fan letter – something he had never done before – on a gift-shop card and left it at the stage door. “I felt like I could really understand what they were saying.”
Perhaps Rosalind’s magic is most embodied in the epilogue – she’s famously the only female Shakespeare character afforded the opportunity to deliver one – in which she says: “If I were a woman…” For Groff it offers a bridge between character and actor, and a chance to explore masculinity, tenderness and vulnerability – themes that feel particularly resonant in a play where men are encouraged, once they reach Arden, to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Groff has been circling similar ideas in his recent work. Just in Time began and ended with the Broadway star playing himself. One night, co-director Evans was in the audience, watching Groff slip in and out of character as Bobby Darin. Five days later he emailed him with an offer: Rosalind. Groff’s reply? “Oh my gosh, please.”
As You Like It is at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 26 September until 7 November 2026