In Just in Time, Bobby Darin (played by Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff) says he wants to present "an old sound made new" through his songs. So when the orchestrators of Just in Time set out to bring the bio-musical to Broadway, it wasn't a simple matter of recreating note-for-note Darin's hit songs such as "Beyond the Sea" or "Splish Splash."

Says Andrew Resnick, whose Just in Time orchestrations with Michael Thurber got a 2025 Tony nomination for Best Orchestrations: "We wanted it to feel alive for right now...It was more or less using acoustic instruments and using instruments that were available at that time, but how do we make it sound modern? Not a lot of synthesizers, not a lot of things that were going to place it in 2025, instrumentally, but in terms of the approach, the production techniques, the feeling of being in your face." 

That ethos extended from the 11-piece band to the vocals. Sure, the cast are playing real people but, says Resnick: "We're not having Groff do a Bobby Darin impression, and we're not having Gracie [Lawrence] do a Connie Francis impression. We're having them basically sing the way they would want to sing as themselves, while gently gesturing towards the singers in the era in which it came."

It's a sonic experience that's both comforting and nostalgic for those who know Darin's music, but also utterly surprising and exciting for everyone—newcomers and old-timers alike. 

The Just in Time cast album is currently out on streaming now, via Atlantic Records, with a physical release slated for October 24. It is produced by Resnick and Bill Sherman. Below, Resnick and Sherman (who also did the orchestrations for & Juliet), reveal some behind-the-scenes stories from recording the Just in Time cast album, and note which Easter Eggs you should listen for on the record—including why they needed to capture the sound of rubber duckies for "Splish Splash."

"Start of Something / Just in Time"

Andrew Resnick: This was actually a mash up that preexisted. This was from a 1962 Bobby Darin live appearance on "Ed Sullivan," which is really cool. And he put these two songs together for whatever reason, and they work. We were trying to figure out how to start the show. And "Beyond the Sea" used to be the initial opening song, and we knew we wanted "Beyond the Sea" at the top, but there's something energetically about "Beyond the Sea" where it doesn't melt your face in the way that we really wanted the opener to do. And so Warren Leight, one of the book writers, came across this. It really got us that feel of being shot out of the cannon. We then decided to start with this kind of big fanfare. We use the main theme of "Mack the Knife" as a way to kind of welcome everyone in. And then we transition into the top of "Start of Something," which is this kind of frenetic, bongo, Judy Garland-esque thing—from the get go, we wanted to really have a sense of just everything in your face, feeling live, electric, urgent, powerful. 

I also love what the horns play and how they play it at 51 seconds. So, if you're bored and you're reading this, go to 51 seconds in and listen to how fast and together the horns play. It's really, really cool. And then at the end of this song, right before the big held note at the end, Jared Schonig, our drummer, he just goes like, "Oh!" at the end. And I actually think that encapsulated what we want the record to be, which was feeling live, not overly produced. Like you were right there in the room with everybody.

"Who's Sorry Now"

Bill Sherman: I felt like our job in this tune particularly was to get out of the way. And with Gracie [Lawrence] it was just like, "Gracie, just you sing and tell us when you got it." So she did it twice and she's like, "I got it." And that was the end of that conversation. Andrew and I, we had a great conversation about, "What's the band sound like for 'Who's Sorry Now' so it doesn't get in the way of Gracie?" So it was always about how simple, and sort of Amy Winehouse, can we make this? So that it's all about her voice.

Resnick: Just a fun fact for those at home or wherever you are. That take she did, that we went with, was unbelievable. She's a rock star, but we get to this note, "Now we must pay." And she holds the note "pay" for a long, long, long time. And it didn't start that way. It used to be just a measure of four beats, and that was it. And then a few [preview performances] in, [director Alex Timbers] was like, "What do you think if she held that note twice as long?" And I was like, "Yeah, let's give it a shot." And we did it. And then a few shows later, Alex was like, "What do you think if she just held that note for as long as she could possibly hold that note. And then you just come in when you feel like it's time to move on?" And we gave it a shot, and that's what we went with. And she could have held that note longer, but we didn't want the record to be longer than 70 minutes.

"Splish Splash"

Sherman: One of my favorite parts about "Splish Splash" is the mixing of it. So shout out to our mixer, Derik Lee, who everyone should know. He's the producer, mixer, and engineer of just about every Broadway cast recording that exists. And we were fortunate enough to get him on this. What we did in the mixing of it is just turn it a little more rock 'n' roll and a little more gritty and a little more what we in the record business call "saturated," where everything has some sort of fuzz on it. And so, we have a number of different versions of this song, one that's super saturated and sounds kind of ridiculous, and then some other ones. And the one we landed on. I feel like, as a record producer, it was cool to be given the leeway to do that, and people loved it. It's a little bit grittier. It's such a seminal song that it's really fun to have a new version of it.

Resnick: I just want to add, like this idea of making it sound huge, what was also cool, was that we recorded this after the viral dance moment on TikTok—the dance break of "Splish Splash" [was] one of the dances of the summer. And shout out to Shannon Lewis for choreographing the viral dance break. But when we got to that section [in the studio], and we're just like, "How do we make this section sound enormous and different?" And we added a tambourine, and we saturated the shit out of those drums. We also have [rubber] ducks at the end of the song. It was a big question of whether or not we include the duck quacks, they do it rhythmically in the show. One could maybe argue that it's not in great taste to add ducks quacking rhythmically. But we felt it was very important to capture the exact rhythm of the quacks.

Sherman: But it's a fantastic quack.

Resnick: Yeah, we really put a lot of thought into it, so I hope people appreciate it.

"Mack the Knife"

Sherman: "Mack the Knife" is such a seminal song. It was another sort of "Get out of the way" vibe. This was interesting though because it was one that Groff kept on wanting to come back to, to keep on tweaking with. And I was trying to understand why, because he usually doesn't do that. And so we had a lot of chats about what's the ebb and flow of the song and what's the contour of the thing. He said something very interesting. He said, "When I'm on stage, I hear it one way. And when we're in the studio in headphones, I hear it a different way. You know, how the horns go when they have that descending sort of thing, I don't hear that when we're in the theatre. But I really hear it when we're recording." And so we've talked about it for a long time. And then he was always really interested in the shape of the whole song, because it starts so small and whispery, and so in the microphone. And then it sort of grows into this huge thing. So it was interesting to work with him on really getting the flow and the contour, the dynamics of his delivery and his stuff really set.

Resnick: Three things. One: This was a great example of a song where the original record formed along the base of it, and then some of [Bobby Darin's] live versions found its way into some of the arrangements, and then some of what I just wanted to do. And it all came together in this really nice way where it hopefully feels of a piece. Second: The journey he goes on in the song is unbelievable. And when he gets to the two Jenny Diver verses at the end—when he gets to the first one, you're like, "Holy shit, he's really going for it." And then he goes for it again, even harder for the last section, and you can hear him giving everything he has. And I just think it's really exciting. 

At the end of the song where Groff goes, "Look out. Old Mackey is back." And in the show, Jared, our drummer, says, "Get it, Bobby!" He screams it, and then we have the button of the song. And we were wondering if we should include it in the recording or not. And it became very obvious that it needed to be on this record, it's part of the show. Adding it keeps you on your toes. You're not expecting it, and it's really exciting.

"Irresistible You"

Resnick: I just love the song. I could see it being a pop song of today. I also think [Erika Henningsen as Sandra Dee] sounds fantastic on it. She and Groff have amazing chemistry. There's a dance break that I'm really proud of. And then at the end of the song, there are wedding bells—if you want to listen, in the orchestration, I added wedding bells because they get married. Oh, I'm so proud of this. Actually, the notes that the wedding bells are playing is the bass line for "Beyond the Sea." 

Sherman: Look at you score guy, that's impressive!

And the two of them, you can hear their love for each other. My daughters plays it on repeat. The recording of this, it was very clear that everyone who was there was so happy to be there. What more can you ask for when you're making a record and you're trying to fit 20-some-odd songs in three days of work. But that's one of my favorite notes to give singers, if you smile when you sing, it sort of reads in the audio. I didn't have to say that a lot, though, here. Everyone's already kind of doing it because they're having the best time.

"Once in a Lifetime/That’s All"

Resnick: This is one of the most exciting moments in the show. [Bobby Darin's] final nightclub performance. And I think the electricity of it really came out on the album. Me, Groff, and Alex kept talking about that this was his dance of death. He knows his time is running out. He's giving everything he has. There's a German word called totentanz, which is literally dance of death. So the whole point of the song was like, "How do we keep building? Keep building, keep building, keep building." If you see the show, this is when he spins on the table, this is where the horns come out. We were able to add strings to this [on the record], and some more horns. Michael Blanco, our bass player, is going crazy with the double time on the bass. We decided to mash "Once in a Lifetime" and "That's All" because both Bobby Darin's version of "Once in a Lifetime" and "That's All" are at this fast double-time clip. We also bring in the sirens singing "this could be the start of something," which is bringing back the top of the show—because everything's swirling around him as he's in this final moment of his life. 

At the end of the song in the show, Bobby's heart goes out, and so we never really get a button of the song. But Jared is able to play this enormous drum fill at the end that then buttons [it on the record]. It's really, really exciting. And he gets the best sounds out of the drums. Jumaane [Smith], our amazing trumpet player, has these incredible runs throughout. Fun fact: On the recording after the final button, when we finished this take that we use, Groff screamed into the microphone, "Who needs therapy?!" We almost included it as a bonus track. But that captures the song.

"Curtain Falls"

Resnick: What I think is so cool about this song was Bill really helped get this vocal approach from Groff; you hear him right up close to the mic at the top of it. It's so intimate. It's the end of the show, and he sings, "Off comes the makeup." And you feel like you're right there, he's singing right to you. You're the only person in the room. And that was how we approached this entire song. 

Sherman: Getting Groff right up on the mic, and being really like, he's talking to you, you're just having a conversation—I always find those moments to be really cool. His voice is so crystal and so clear. Everybody comments on how much he spits. But you can't even hear the spit or the phlegm in his voice. It was really magical, to be honest. 

"Curtain Call Medley"

Resnick: So Timbers comes up to me, and he goes, "Andrew, I think we need to do a big megamix at the end. I think we need to do the songs that people love, but in a way that nobody's heard them before." And I was like, "Fuck. But great." I knew that nothing was going to feel more energetic than "Splish Splash." But how do you do "Mack the Knife" in a way that is interesting after having Groff do it earlier in the show? The only way to do that is to have Gracie and Erika, like, singing at the top of their lungs and just belting. And having this idea of, "How are they going to sing higher? Oh my God, they're singing higher! Oh my God, they're going even higher!" And to keep pushing that. And then Alex also had this idea of the horn players in kind of a Bruno Mars-like dance. He mentioned that, and that gave me the idea of having "Dream Lover" live in this kind of slightly hipper, faster place, because I could imagine the horn players just moving in that. On the album, the title is "Curtain Call Medley." It's a boring title, but they didn't allow us to include the actual title of of the song, which is "The Generally Extremely Very Wet Megamix." That's what it's actually titled on the sheet music. 

Two more things: At the end of the song, when we head into "Splish Splash," two things happen. This is a shout-out to my girlfriend. As Groff is singing the "Splish Splash" lyrics, for the background vocals, initially I was like, "What syllable are they singing? They're singing, ba, ba, ba." And my girlfriend was like, "Why shouldn't they should just sing blub? They're in the tub. It's 'Splish Splash.'" So now for about 20 seconds, we have everyone in the cast going, "blub, blub, blub, blub, blub, blub, blub," which is really enjoyable, if you wanna listen for that. 

The other thing is, when we get to this last section of "Splish Splash," we go through these key changes and there are three different lines: "Lollipop with Peggy Sue. Good golly, Miss Molly was even there." I knew I wanted two more key changes to help build it, but there were no lyrics to do it without repeating ourselves. When I first put this thing together, I put in some dummy lyrics, something like, "Bobby D Circle in the Square 2025, I hope to see you there." It was really shitty and lame, and I knew it wasn't gonna stick. And then I think it was [actor] Emily Bergl who was like, "It should just be 'Bobby D is the fucking shit.'" And somehow that stuck, and we rhymed it with something else in the workshop. But then when we were doing the album and the show, he references, "It's Just in Time in the basement of Wicked." Basement of Wicked, that was an Alex Timbers thought, but the rhyming of "fucking shit" and Wicked is pretty amazing.

I just think this whole track is so much fun, it's just a party.

"Rock Island Line" (Bonus Track)

Sherman: Our favorite track, as a send off. If you haven't listened to the bonus track of "Rock Island Line," go do yourself a favor and listen to that one because it is a gem. And it's really funny in the show and it's funnier on the record. In the middle of it, when he goes "pigs," my kids will walk around the house just saying pigs all the time, and they think that's the funniest thing ever.

Resnick: We're like, "Is this gonna be funny on the record without the audience seeing him mess up the lyrics?" And the answer was yes, it was very funny. Pigs! That should be the name of the article.