Biography[edit]

Groff was trained at Yale University and New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where she currently teaches.


A founding member of Elevator Repair Service Theater Company, she has been a part of the writing, staging, and performing of their shows since the company's inception in 1991. She is at work on a commission from The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.[1]


With playwright/lyricist John Dempsey and composer Michael Friedman, Groff co-wrote the book and lyrics for the stage musical adaptation of the movie Saved!.[2] Her play Compulsion opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on February 1, 2011, starring Mandy Patinkin and directed by Oskar Eustis. The play had previously played at Yale Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, both in 2010.[3]


Alongside composer Frank Wildhorn and lyricists Tracy Miller and Carly Robyn Green, Groff wrote an English language book for the stage musical Your Lie in April, based on its original Japanese book by Riko Sakaguchi. The musical is an adaptation of Naoshi Arakawa's Kodansha manga Your Lie in April. In November 2023, an English language concert staging of Your Lie in April (musical) was announced to debut at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on the West End in April 2024, directed by Nick Winston.[4]

Recipient of a 2006 [5]

Guggenheim Award

Recipient of a 2005 for drama

Whiting Award

Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2002-03 for her play Orange Lemon Egg Canary

Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony in 2005.

Inky ( and Salt Theater, 2000)

Clubbed Thumb

The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem (, 2000)

Target Margin Theater

Jimmy Carter was a Democrat (produced at and P.S. 122, 2002)[6]

Clubbed Thumb

Orange Lemon Egg Canary (, 2003)

Actors Theater of Louisville

You Never Know (co-writer with ) (Trinity Rep, 2005)

Charles Strouse

Molière Impromptu (Trinity Rep, 2005)

The Ruby Sunrise (, November 2005, directed by Oskar Eustis)

Public Theater

What Then (, 2006)

Clubbed Thumb

Compulsion (2010, , 2010)[7]

Yale Repertory Theatre

Sleep Rock Thy Brain along with Lucas Hnath and Anne Washburn (, 2013)

Actors Theater of Louisville

77% (, 2014)

San Francisco Playhouse

Fire in Dreamland (Public Theater, 2018)

[8]

- The Concert ( Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 2024)[9]

Your Lie in April (musical)

Profile and Production History at The Whiting Foundation

on Playscripts, Inc.

Rinne Groff bio and play listing