Latest news with #Boop
Vogue
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
‘I'm Always Fighting Myself to Be Better, Better, Better': Boop! Star Jasmine Amy Rogers Looks Ahead to the Tonys
After a two-year stint at the Manhattan College of Music, she dropped out and quickly landed a role in a new musical, Becoming Nancy, directed by Jerry Mitchell that premiered in Atlanta in 2019. Following a tour as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, she was brought in by Mitchell to audition for Betty in the Chicago try-out of Boop! in 2023. (She had played a different, supporting character in an earlier workshop of the show.) She was not prepared for the tap-heavy choreography involved in that first audition. 'It was horrifying!' A competitive dancer as a child, she stopped training when she moved to Texas at 11, but figured enough of the skill would come back for her to wing it; she was wrong. 'It was soul-crushing, I went home and sobbed,' she recalls, the cringe still visible in her eyes. She did not get the part then. Later that spring, she happened to be in a rehearsal space in Manhattan, helping a friend with another show, when she heard the Boop! music wafting down the hallway. Rogers did some digging and discovered the production still had not cast Betty. She describes pacing around midtown that day, contemplating what she should do before finally calling her agent. 'I was like, 'I don't know what we need to do, but I need to get back in there.' I'd never done anything like that before.' It worked, and for two weeks she crammed in as many tap classes at Broadway Dance Center as she could before her second chance at the role. The rest is history, and the performance she delivers is a brilliant hat trick: a disarmingly human portrayal of a famously one-dimensional character. 'The tricky part about her,' Rogers says of Betty, 'is combining the larger-than-life energy of a cartoon with a real person.' Her standout 11 o'clock number, 'Something to Shout About,' a towering David Foster Ballad, brings down the house. Rogers describes herself as bubbly and larger-than-life, which made building Betty a natural process. 'There is a lot of her that also belongs to Jasmine.' And she relished recreating Betty's signature hour-glass look with costume designer Gregg Barnes, who is also up for a Tony. 'I'm in a corset the whole show; it's great and terrible at the same time. But the shape it creates is so beautiful, I wouldn't feel like her without it.' For Betty's iconic bob and curls, Rogers and hair stylist Sabana Majeed looked to Dorothy Dandridge and other old Hollywood references to make it recognizable but elevated.
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Little-known site sees Marc Jacobs' 'perfect summer perfume' slashed to £33
If you've been looking for a new signature scent, Marc Jacobs' Dot, which shoppers say is perfect for summer, is now £33 instead of £99 thanks to this hidden gem savings site Purchasing a new fragrance requires a lot of thought and can be a real investment, especially if you're looking at designer fashion house perfumes that come with near-£100 price tags, if not even more. Luckily, if you are on the lookout for a signature scent, little-known savings site, Boop Beauty, has just slashed Marc Jacobs' Dot Eau de Parfum from £99 to £32.99 - that's a huge 67% discount! Dot is an iconic feel-good fragrance featuring notes of red berries, dragonfruit, and honeysuckle, which add a sweet, refreshing, summer touch. The soft floral notes of jasmine and orange blossom, with a hint of coconut water, give it a light, tropical feel that makes it perfect for summertime. Inspired by Marc Jacobs' iconic polka dots, the bottle features a gorgeous red-and-black spotted design with oversized butterfly wings for a playful touch. Not to mention, right on trend for this season. The gold coil around the neck adds a touch of luxe, making it a standout on any dressing table or shelf. Whether you're gifting someone special or treating yourself, Dot is the kind of perfume that feels like summer in both scent and style. Boop is not the only place where this summery scent is discounted. Currently, Boots is offering a huge 50% off, too, bringing the price down from £99 to £49. And if you're looking for further wallet-friendly fragrances, . Jimmy Choo's popular Flash Eau de Parfum, praised by shoppers for its long-lasting wear and feminine smell, is currently available for less than £25 in a limited-time flash sale on LookFantastic. Hundreds of shopper reviews praise Marc Jacobs Dot for its fruity and fresh scent. One happy shopper wrote, "It's a lovely, fresh summery fragrance that makes me feel warm and relaxed." A second added: "I have liked other Marc Jacob's so decided to give this one a try and I am certainly not disappointed I love the top on the bottle and the perfume is not like anything I've bought before, really like it." The only criticisms came from a few shoppers who claimed Dot does not last quite as long on the skin as some of Marc Jacobs' other fragrances, like his cult-favourite Daisy perfumes.
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Boop! The Musical' Review: Betty Gets a Brand Extension
Some shows are 'what?' shows, leaving you baffled. Perhaps they involve roller-skating trains or shrouds of Turin. Others are 'how?' shows, as in: Dear God, how did that happen? But the most disappointing subgenre of musical, at least in terms of opportunity cost, is the 'why?' show: a well-crafted, charmingly performed, highly professional production that nobody asked for. Its intentions are foggy and sometimes suspicious. 'Boop! The Musical' — now playing at the Broadhurst Theater, in a production directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell — is a 'why?' show par excellence. And excellence it has. As Betty, the flapper of early talkie cartoons, Jasmine Amy Rogers is immensely likable. She sings fabulously, sports a credible perma-smile, nails all the Boop mannerisms and has a fetching way with a tossed-off line. I can't imagine anyone making more of the exhausting opportunity, let alone in a Broadway debut. She is ably supported by other young talent in featured roles, luxury-cast veterans doing their damnedest and a hard-working ensemble selling Mitchell's insistent, imaginative, precision-drilled dances. When his pinwheel kick-lines hop in unison, not one foot among 26 is left on the floor. Or make that 27, because Pudgy, Betty's pug, a marionette with a lolling pink tongue operated by the puppeteer Phillip Huber, sometimes shakes a leg too. And wait, there's more: David Foster's music, in a jazzy brass-and-reeds Cy Coleman vein, pops nicely; the lyrics, by Susan Birkenhead, are far better crafted than you dare hope these days. To the extent it is possible to enjoy the story's themes — the power of music, the way color comes into your life when you love — it is often because she encapsulates them so amusingly. I laughed out loud at her show-off rhyme of 'It girls' and 'spit curls.' But none of that explains or justifies the show's existence. Nor, despite enormous effort, can the book by Bob Martin. In building a case for a vintage piece of intellectual property — Betty was born as a half-dog in 1930 — Martin winds up replicating the kind of musical he roasted in 'The Drowsy Chaperone' (1998) and the delusional creatives he pierced in 'The Prom' (2016). That show's imaginary 'Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical,' is no less ludicrous than the real-life 'Boop! The Musical.' Granted, Broadway history has proved that ludicrousness is not in itself a deterrent to enjoyment. But laboriousness is, and it's only with the groaning of heavy machinery underneath it that 'Boop!' approaches the semblance of a lighthearted surface. The premise, though silly, is the least of it: Betty, a quasi-human cartoon in a black-and-white world, stars in animated Fleischer Studios shorts. (Max Fleischer created the character; the studio named for him made the movies.) Though reporters fawn over her as 'a singer, a dancer, an actress, a star beloved by millions,' she doesn't know who she really is. Yes, the musical rests on the identity crisis of a smudge of inked celluloid. A time-travel machine created by Grampy (Stephen DeRosa) provides the way out of the crisis, dumping Betty in current-day New York City. At the Javits Center during Comic Con, she adapts perhaps faster than we do to the bizarrely dressed and garishly colorful Oz-like new world. (Costumes by Gregg Barnes, lighting by Philip S. Rosenberg.) Also as in Oz, Betty acquires three companions: Trisha (Angelica Hale), a young Boop fanatic she meets at the convention; Dwayne (Ainsley Melham), a jazz musician who is maybe Trisha's cousin, but it's not very clear; and Carol (Anastacia McCleskey), a campaign manager who is maybe Dwayne's mother and definitely Trisha's guardian. Because wouldn't you know it, Trisha, like yet another piece of ancient IP, is an orphan. And then there's Valentina, an astrophysicist who, 40 years earlier, hooked up with Grampy when he visited the real world. The best thing to say about her is that she's played by Faith Prince, looking game, if understandably confused. In any case, Grampy and Valentina reunite when he returns to the real world to reclaim Betty, without whom the black-and-white world at home is fading. But will she go back with him, now that, with the help of her new friends, she is involved in a mayoral election, a sanitation scandal and a feminist quest to take charge of her identity? I wish the show had taken charge of its identity too. Instead, one feels at all times the heavy hooves of a marketing imperative. The brand discipline is punishing; in David Rockwell's scenic design, even the proscenium has spit curls. And poor Trisha, hasn't she lived through enough without being turned into a brand ambassador? 'Betty Boop has been famous everywhere for like a hundred years!' she says, as one does. 'Betty Boop is strong and smart and confident and capable.' She even gets a song, called 'Portrait of Betty,' that hymns Boop's praises as if she were, well, Eleanor Roosevelt: 'She is not afraid to fight / For all the people who cannot defend themselves.' In short, as a typically well turned Birkenhead lyric puts it: 'She has spunk, she has spine, she's a saint, bottom line.' And there it is. The bottom line. Betty Boop, if not the earliest cartoons she appears in, is still under copyright protection. No doubt the Fleischer heirs, with one eye on 'Barbie,' would like to exploit their biggest star before she goes bust. Fair enough; who wouldn't? But a merch grab — in the lobby a plushie Pudgy goes for $35 — is not the same as a musical. The answer to 'why?' should not come from mere marketeers.
