Isa Briones is taking over the role of Connie Francis in the Broadway musical Just in Time.
The role marks a return to Broadway for The Pitt star, who made her debut in Hadestown in March 2024. She begins her limited run starting April 1, opposite Matthew Morrison as the crooner Bobby Darrin, and will later play opposite Jeremy Jordan, when he takes over April 21.
In addition to her role as Dr. Trinity Santos on The Pitt, Briones has often appeared on stage, including in the Hamilton national tour and East West Players’ Next to Normal. Briones said she was drawn to play Francis, a famed 1950s and ‘60s ballad singer, because it allows her to imitate the vocal style of that era. It also balances well with the more serious content of The Pitt.
“It’s nice to do something that really just feels like joy for two hours,” said Briones, shortly after her first rehearsal for Just In Time Tuesday.
The role also fits into her goal of continuing to move between theater and television throughout her career, which has also included roles on the Disney+ series Goosebump and the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Picard.
“The Pitt is very theatrical in how we shoot it and how we rehearse it. So being a theater person going into The Pitt felt very natural, and to keep bouncing back and forth between The Pitt and theater, which has been kind of my vibe for the last year-and-a-half, has just felt quite natural,” she said.
In the second season of HBO medical drama, the lines are further blurred when Briones’ character sings a Filipino lullaby to an infant patient — an idea she said came from the writers and involved consulting her father, Broadway actor Jon Jon Briones, for help selecting the right song.
“The Pitt is very good at playing to people’s strengths and skills, and since they knew that I could sing, they were like, ‘Alright, let’s do it,’” she said.
Briones had a more trying test while shooting episode nine in the second season of The Pitt, which came out March 5, when she began to feel stomach pain and eventually had to undergo an appendectomy. She still shot scenes for the episode pre- and post-surgery. “We shut down for two days. But then when we came back, everyone came to me and was like, ‘Honestly, thank you for having appendicitis, because we needed two days,’” she said.
Briones joins Just In Time about a year into its well-sold run, taking over the role of Francis from Sarah Hyland. For her second time on Broadway, Briones said she feels “really ready,” and prepared for the demands of an eight-show week, based on her experience as Eurydice in Hadestown.
She said, “I think I learned a lot from doing it. It was such an incredible experience, and I loved it. But I also can now look back and be like, ‘Oh, I know what I can do better now.’”
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