Broadway’s Erika Henningsen on The ”Jewelbox Songs” of Just In Time

“Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee!” For Erika Henningsen, Sandra Dee is much more than just a line in a song from Grease. Since March, the Broadway veteran—an alumna of Broadway’s Mean Girls, Les Miserables and more—has brought the famous ingénue to life in Just In Time, the new hit musical about the life of Bobby Darin.

Now playing at Circle in the Square Theatre with direction by Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge! The Musical; David Byrne’s American Utopia), the jukebox musical stars Tony winner Jonathan Groff as the pioneering pop crooner, who rose to fame with hits like “Splish Splash” and “Mack the Knife” and won the first-ever Grammy for Best New Artist when the category was introduced in 1960.

That same year, the real-life Darin met Dee on the set of the 1961 romantic comedy Come September; by year’s end, the “Dream Lover” singer and the 18-year-old movie starlet were married. The couple’s whirlwind romance takes center stage in Just In Time, which raked in six Tony Award nominations shortly after opening and also stars Gracie Lawrence as Connie Francis, Joe Barbara as Charlie Maffia, Emily Bergl as Nina Cassotto, Lance Roberts as Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, Caesar Samayoa as music producer Don Kirshner and Michele Pawk as Polly Walden.

Despite featuring pop hits from every era of Darin’s career, Henningsen insists, “I don’t even really like calling it a jukebox musical, ’cause it doesn’t feel like that… all the music is Bobby Darin’s music, but a lot of the songs are really just some of the Great American Songbook standards reimagined in ways that are more fitting for, like, a nightclub setting.”

The original Broadway cast recording of Just In Time hits streaming services via Atlantic Records today (August 15). Featuring Tony-nominated orchestrations by music supervisor Andrew Resnick and orchestrator Michael Thurber, the album transports listeners directly to the theater’s nightclub setting as Groff, Henningsen and Co. belt out big band numbers like “Beyond The Sea,” “First Real Love” and “Irresistible You.”

Below, Henningsen opens up exclusively to Ticketmaster about stepping into Sandra Dee’s well-heeled shoes, the magic of Broadway cast recordings and more.

Let’s start at the beginning: What initially interested you in Just In Time and the prospect of playing Sandra Dee?

For me, I just really wanted to work with Jonathan [Groff] and Alex [Timbers]. I’ve been such a fan of Alex for such a long time. I think when you hear a jukebox musical idea, you’re like, “Is this gonna be cool?” And then before I went in to audition, I was like, “Can you just send me the most updated script?” ‘Cause I still wasn’t really sold on it. In the first five minutes, something happens that just totally reverts the concept of a jukebox musical — it was our book writer Isaac Oliver’s idea — and I really do feel like that pivot, which I won’t spoil the surprise for you, but that was what made me be like, “Oh! This isn’t a regular jukebox musical, it’s a cool jukebox musical!”

For actors, it’s always a combo of sometimes you’re doing it for the people or because you love the piece. But for this, I didn’t know what the piece was, and I just knew I trusted the people in it and I kind of took a jump. I’m not gonna lie, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I signed up for it. And what it’s turned out to be has been kind of above and beyond what I had anticipated in a great way.

How familiar were you with Sandra Dee going into the project?

I didn’t know… much. Obviously, a lot of people are familiar with the Grease song [“Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee”]. I was aware she was a movie star. But yeah, I really didn’t know much.

Playing Cady Heron in Mean Girls was obviously so iconic, but this is the first time you’ve portrayed a real person on Broadway. Do you take a different approach to creating a character when it’s based on someone who was really alive?

Dodd Darin, who was Bobby and Sandra’s son, wrote this incredible sort of biography [1994’s Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee] about both of his parents’ lives, and how they intersected, and who they were apart from one another and who they were together. So I read that in preparation for rehearsals, and it was helpful [in] figuring out what facts of her personal life are in service of this story that we’re telling.

One thing I was really interested in seeking was, she was a child star, but she was number one on the call sheet. So she was given all this responsibility at such a young age, but never really, like, dated or knew how to do her own laundry. She was such an adult in some ways because she was being tasked with headlining these massive studio pictures. But a child in others, in that she didn’t really have friends her own age, she didn’t have that safety net of trying things out of the public eye.

It’s hard to condense a whole life into a two-hour show, right?

I think when you see any musical where people fall in love, it can feel like it happens really fast. Because it needs to — we only have two hours. And I remember feeling like, “Oh gosh, is this happening too fast? I only have one act to tell this whole story.” But knowing about how difficult Sandra’s life was, I was like, “Of course she would fall in love with the first person who was relatively close to her age, who treated her with respect, who got her to loosen up.”

It made so much sense to me how quickly, through song, we really see Bobby and Sandra fall in love because, knowing what I know from all the research, that’s how it happened. I really believe that she felt such safety with this person in a way she hadn’t before, and was looking for any way out of, honestly, a difficult relationship with her mother. And Bobby provided that… I really do believe the way we’ve crafted the story hits every single moment that was important to Sandra and Bobby’s relationship.

Your first song in the show is “Not For Me.” Where is Sandra Dee in her life and career when the audience first meets her?

She’s filming Come September, which was this huge breakout movie — and sort of the breakout hit for Bobby — and she’s filming on the Italian coast [in the] Portofino area. From what I remember reading, she’s basically shooting on set every day, going home to her hotel room with her mom and ordering room service. Like, she’s not having a Roman Holiday type of experience, to quote Audrey Hepburn.

We’ve played around with that song a lot. The song’s lyrics are kind of, umm, self-victimizing? If you read the lyrics, it’s like, “People are singing songs of love, but not for me, I’ve never known love, I’ve never been shown love.” And I think maybe the worst way to introduce a character, especially in the second act, is to have somebody who’s pitying herself. So a big thing we wanted to do was play against that: How can this be cheeky? How can this be a girl who’s sort of made peace with her lifestyle? Like, “Girls are going on dates and having life experiences, but then not me, I’m perfect Sandra Dee.” How can we see that be a fake exterior that she’s put up, but she’s OK with it?

It starts from this really constrained, tight place. And then it really expands, and for me that’s so much fun to play ’cause I feel like you meet Sandra and she looks exactly like what you want her to look like, and she’s singing the way you think she would sing. It’s all very contained and controlled with this edge underneath, and then the edge gets to come out for a second in this final big chorus. And then Pandora’s box closes again, and she’s back to [being Sandra Dee]. So it’s fun.

You mentioned Bobby and Sandra fall in love through song in the show. Do you have a favorite duet with Jonathan?

We perform “Irresistible You,” which is this very, like, 500 Days of Summer, music video-type of thing where we’re running through the audience and dancing on tables. It’s very iconic and it uses the space so beautifully. It’s one of the moments in the show where you realize this venue of Circle in the Square Theatre and Alex’s vision for how to use it are so aligned. Especially when it hits with a song like that, where we’re really trying to give you the feeling of a montage without having any costume changes or set changes.

Bobby and Sandra Dee were really one of Hollywood’s earliest golden couples. Did you draw any inspiration for their relationship in the show from more contemporary celebrity couples?

That’s a really good question. When we were doing press for the show, at the very beginning before people knew what it was, they were like, “What is your relationship? What is Bobby and Sandra?” Sandra was a movie star, she was not a musician. So it was these two people, very successful in their own rights, in two totally different fields coming together, and the star power of that.

I think that they were an interesting match because Sandra was such a product of the studio system. She had a very cultivated image, and Bobby was not that — he was a little more raucous. He wasn’t a quote-unquote “bad boy,” but I think he definitely brought some excitement to her life in a way that I think people were a little surprised when they ended up together. I don’t think you would’ve initially thought that they would’ve been compatible. But I think their differences are what made them so attracted to one another.

What was the process like recording the cast album? I understand you recorded the entire thing with the full, live band.

We did it at Power Station [at BerkleeNYC]. And yeah! That’s not always how it’s done. Sometimes the band is recorded elsewhere and then you record yourself over tracks. But we recorded with the live band in the entire studio, and they were so unreal. [They are] such a part of the show in a way that doesn’t always happen for a Broadway musical where they’re in an orchestra pit. Our band is right on stage with us, they’re supporting the moment even when they’re not playing.

We got to record with them live and I think that was really important: ensuring that the cast album sounds as close to what you would experience if you were live and in the theater with us. Which is, we are in a real, live conversation with the band at every moment. Nothing is really patched in, it’s all happening live, all the vocals are live, and I just think it’s so special.

Cast recordings tend to become really meaningful and integral for Broadway fans, especially kids all over the country falling in love with theater for the first time, or who can’t come to New York to see the show in person. Did you have a favorite cast album growing up?

It sounds so cliché, but the original London cast of Les Mis is, like, one of the best cast albums ever made.

Oh yes, the two-disc one from 1985!

Yes! The Colm Wilkinson version. It’s double-sided, they didn’t cut anything. Including Thénardier’s weird song in the sewer. [Laughs] And it’s just so epic. A big thing about shows is they all have their own vibe. Like the Mean Girls cast album, we really wanted it to feel like a pop-rock album, so there’s a lot of production value on it that makes it sound like something you might hear on the radio. Hopefully for Just In Time, it sounds like a big band recording in a studio in the 1950s — that’s the goal. Les Mis, that cast album is meant to sound like an operetta. So you’re hearing all the intricacies of people’s voices, the gravel in their voices, it just feels so live. No part of it feels overproduced. They’re just letting the music and the actors tell the story in its full entirety. And when you’re a kid discovering musical theater, that’s just thrilling. It really does feel like such a sensory experience listening to the Les Mis cast album.

So much of Bobby Darin’s music is truly so foundational to everything in pop music that has come after it. But his catalog is something a lot of younger people probably aren’t too familiar with today. What do you want, say, a theater kid listening to Just In Time in his bedroom in Ohio to take away from the experience?

I think what’s so indicative of why the show is successful — and why we’re having audiences that range from true Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee fans to the 20-year-old kids who are visiting on their college summer from their MT programs coming to see the show — is the orchestrations that [music supervisor] Andrew Resnick and [orchestrator] Michael Thurber did. They take the classic song and then they’ve blown it out in a way that makes sense for a modern audience.

I coach a lot of high school students. And when I suggest a song to them that’s from pre-1950s, I always say, “Listen to the cast album, but then go find somebody on YouTube that you like singing it live.” Because the way people sang and the way we recorded things from the ’30s to the ’60s is very different from when we had the shift in the ’70s. Pop and pop-rock started to infiltrate theater and standards and the American Songbook.

So, I think what our orchestrators and music team has done so beautifully is, they’re paying homage to the original song but they’re ensuring that it doesn’t sound old. Nothing sounds antiquated, nothing sounds stale. And that would be my advice to these young theater people listening: some of the best songs are from this era. They’re like jewelbox songs, and it may just take a listen with fresh ears and a fresh take, the way Just In Time does, to be reminded of why they have stood the test of time.

I also wanted to ask about another project that you did this year: The Four Seasons on Netflix. What was it like reuniting with Tina Fey and working with such a talented ensemble on that show?

It was the best. Yeah, I mean, I could go on about it for hours, but it was just the most wonderful experience ever. I’m excited, we’re doing a Season 2 and we get to be reunited soon. It’ll just be such a love-fest to get to do it again.

Between Just In Time and that show, it seems you’re really tapping into something here. Having seen the original The Four Seasons, I was a little surprised that they wanted to remake it, but you’re just having a year of reinventing worthwhile stories for new audiences, I guess!

Yeah, what a fun thought… I feel like the way we consumed stories and music 20, 30 years ago is so different than the way we consume stories and music now. And I’m excited that people are pulling from these wonderful things that were created in other generations and adapting them. Because those stories were great, and it’s easy to see why both shows — both Just In Time and The Four Seasons — have had success, ’cause I think there’s something nostalgic in them. And then there’s this brand-new, fresh take that, if you are not familiar with the source material, it feels like you’re discovering it for the first time.

The Just In Time (Original Broadway Cast Recording) is available to stream now. Physical editions will arrive on November 21.