Bantering for Arts Education with Jonathan Groff and Jane Lynch 

It’s great to be in the room where it happens — not just for Hamilton, but when its Tony Award–winning star Jonathan Groff comes to town. 

It’s not often you see a high-end fundraiser so directly connected to the cause it supports, but last week’s benefit for UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Arts Education — held at the Rosewood Miramar Beach and formally titled  “An Evening of Song and Conversation with Jonathan Groff” moderated by Jane Lynch — was a special one for not just the paying customers and the lucky working media, but for the San Marcos High School Madrigal singers, who not only got to perform at the beginning of the event, but the teens got to spend a few hours beforehand with the man who was recently included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2026.

In addition to the main stage performances it presents, as A&L Executive Director Meghan Bush explained in her introduction, “Arts and Lectures also presents more than 150 education events every year for more than 30,000 students and community members across Santa Barbara County, all the way from Carpinteria up to Guadalupe, with the very same artists and speakers that you see on the main stage. And we invest significant resources, both financial and human, to ensure that this access is possible, that the goal of truly making the arts accessible for all is not just something we say. We walk the walk.”

Following a filet mignon dinner, Jim Nye the Auction Guy led the crowd through a short live auction and a lively paddle raise before the eagerly awaited Groff and Lynch took the stage together.

Lynch is always an affable interviewer and seemingly willing to use her comedic powers for good in Santa Barbara (see CommUnify Fundraiser here, and Pacific Pride Foundation here, as just a few examples), but she was particularly on fire that night as she interviewed her former Glee costar. 

As Groff explained, his mom was a gym teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so he immediately connected with Lynch in her trademark track suits on the show. 

“I remember sitting with you on the set, because you were so intimidating because of your talent, and then disarming because of your personality, because you were so volcanically gifted, and on that show so specific as Sue Sylvester, and then you could not be more warm, engaging, [and] kind in person,” shared Groff. “And I remember everyone — even though you were so warm and engaging — everyone still felt at all times a little nervous around you, because of your artistic excellence. I know we didn’t even plan to talk about this, but I’m feeling inspired, because it was like, everybody, a lot of young people on that show, and a lot of people finding their way, when you were doing a scene with Jane, you had to, like, pull your shit together, because Jane was gonna bring the A game and be amazing. You raise the bar for everybody, both personally and professionally on that show. … You have to get to a certain level to play with you.”

“Well, you’re at that level,” quipped Lynch. 

Groff spoke about doing theater in high school and described himself as not being particularly gifted, but highly motivated. “[The other kids] were more doing it for fun and I was doing it for my life. There were kids that were way more talented than me in high school, better singers, better actors, better performers. But I would say that the thing that made me different from them was that I used to watch musicals before I would go to bed. I was eating, sleeping, drinking, breathing theater. And so, I wasn’t more talented than them. Genuinely, there were people that were so gifted, but I was driven. I was so driven, and I was obsessed.”

Recalling his time that day with the students, he said one of the bits of advice he shared with them was, “We’re all just on our own journey. There’s no one set path to being a performer. One of the great things about the entertainment industry is that you make your own way. And so there isn’t any advice that you can get to become an actor. You just sort of listen and follow your instinct and your gut.”

He continued, “It’s not necessarily like the drive comes from a place that’s super loud. It’s like a quiet, purposeful passion.”

In addition to a far reaching and very entertaining conversation with Lynch, the night was also interspersed with several songs from Groff, including “Mama Who Bore Me” from Spring Awakening, “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton, with a slight Beyoncé mashup, and “The Curtain Falls” from Just in Time (the Bobby Darin musical). 

Groff also revealed that he’s working with Hamilton director Lin-Manuel Miranda again, this time on a film called Octet, an a capella musical about screen addiction and a support group for Internet addicts. His costars sadly don’t include Lynch, but they do include Amanda Seyfried, Rachel Zegler, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Phillipa Soo, Gaten Matarazzo, Tramell Tillman, and Paul-Jordan Jansen.