'Glee's' Jonathan Groff, 'True Blood's' Rutina Wesley Join Off-Broadway Production

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Jonathan Groff and Rutina Wesley have been cast in the Off-Broadway production of The Submission, joining a cast that also includes American Pie’s Eddie Kaye Thomas.

From playwright Jeff Talbott and directed by Tony winner Walter Bobbie (School for Lies, Chicago) Submission will run Sept. 8-Oct. 22 at New York’s Lucille Lortel Theatre, with the official opening night set for Sept. 26.

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The MCC Theater production is a play within a play with a twist: Shaleeha G’ntamobi’s stirring new play about an alcoholic black mother and her card sharp son trying to get out of the projects has just been accepted into the nation’s preeminent theater festival. Except there’s one problem: Shaleeha only exists within the imagination of Danny Larson (Groff), a wanna-be playwright who created her as an affirmative action nom-de-plume.

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Little is known about what role Wesley, who plays Sookie’s (Anna Paquin) beleaguered best friend Tara on HBO’s True Blood, will play other than her character’s name -- Emilie. Wesley has a theater background, attending Julliard and studying Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Groff starred in the Broadway production of Spring Awakening and guest starred as a egotistical theater brat on Fox’sGlee opposite his former Spring co-star Lea Michele.

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