Family outings to the Music Center and other Los Angeles performing arts meccas were routine. “Cats” and “Carousel” left strong early impressions on Josh Groban, as did the magic of Cirque du Soleil at the Santa Monica Pier.
Josh Groban earned a Tony nomination for the murderous title role in the new revival of “Sweeney Todd.” “Growing up and being a very shy kid, I was having a hard time communicating,” he says. “Singing was my strongest way of communicating.”
His latest theatrical challenge is his most fearsome yet. Groban stars in the new production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” playing the murderous title role opposite, Sweeney’s partner in crime who comes up with a culinary use for all those customers sliding to their gurgling deaths after a shave and a haircut.
For a big star, Groban is refreshingly free of pretense. He has an instinctual appreciation of the artisan nature of being an artist. He shows up for work, onstage or off, prepared to do his best. There’s nothing dilettantish about his detail-oriented attitude. A professional’s professional, he enjoys talking shop as a surgeon might enjoy discussing the intricacies of a new heart procedure or a mechanic the engineering dynamics of an electric vehicle.
A proud graduate of Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Groban started his Find Your Light Foundation in 2011 to support arts programs nationwide. He knows that arts education isn’t a luxury, but a potential lifeline for students struggling to find their way. Musical theater was Groban’s original plan, so Broadway in some ways represents a return rather than a departure. His majestic baritone has long attracted the interest of theater royals. Barbara Cook, in her introduction to Groban on her 2006 concert album, “Barbara Cook at the Met,” said that he has “one the most beautiful, natural voices that’s come around in a long, long time.
Maybe there was a nucleus in him that was always brewing. But I like to think about the person who was a loving husband, the person who made his baby daughter laugh, and had friends and understood what it took to be a charming small-business owner.”
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