Latest news with #Boop!TheMusical
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tony nominee Jasmine Amy Rogers on finding the ‘color' in 'Boop! The Musical'
One year after getting rejected for the role, Jasmine Amy Rogers is now Tony-nominated for 'Boop! The Musical.' She and co-star Ainsley Melham join Morning Joe to talk about tap dancing, time travel, and why the show's joyful message—'life isn't full of color until it's filled with love'—is resonating with Broadway crowds.
USA Today
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
A Betty Boop musical shouldn't work. But with Jasmine Amy Rogers, it's 'phenomenal.'
A Betty Boop musical shouldn't work. But with Jasmine Amy Rogers, it's 'phenomenal.' Show Caption Hide Caption Betty Boop, Broadway star? New musical reimagines the pop-culture icon Betty Boop trades her cartoon world for New York City in "Boop! The Musical," starring Jasmine Amy Rogers and featuring songs by David Foster. NEW YORK — In high-school choir, Jasmine Amy Rogers discovered Audra McDonald, the six-time Tony-winning Broadway legend. 'I cried the first time I heard her voice,' recalls Rogers, 26. 'I was seeing a Black woman do something I don't think I'd ever seen before and it changed my life. I was able to look at myself in a different way. Now she's right next door, which is out of this world.' The powerhouse performers are starring just steps away from each other on 44th Street: McDonald in 'Gypsy' at the Majestic Theatre, and Rogers in 'Boop! The Musical' at the Broadhurst. They are also both nominated for best leading actress in a musical at the Tony Awards, airing June 8 from Radio City Music Hall (8 ET/5 PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+). 'I'm just the luckiest girl in the world,' says Rogers, who is making her Broadway debut as Betty Boop, the spit-curled, baby-voiced flapper whose visage has become a familiar staple of American pop culture. The unlikely musical comedy imagines if Betty traded her black-and-white, pen-and-ink world for the hustle and bustle of present-day New York, where she falls in love with a dashing trumpeter (Ainsley Melham) and brings down a corrupt mayoral candidate (Erich Bergen). Betty made her first appearance in 1930 in Fleischer Studios' 'Dizzy Dishes.' Many of her earliest cartoons centered on Betty being chased and preyed upon by creepy men, although the stage show helps bring the sexpot into the 21st century, showing how she has always been a subversive, feminist icon, with varied careers and an unwavering moral compass. 'She has such a strong sense of right and wrong, and loves other people,' Rogers says. The character's popularity peaked nearly 90 years ago, meaning many audiences seeing 'Boop!' will be introduced to her for the first time. 'It's liberating, because we've gotten to take so much ownership of her. It's really, really special to get to bring new life to Betty.' How Jasmine Amy Rogers 'completely transforms' into Betty Boop For Rogers, 'it's been a long, long road' to playing Betty on Broadway. In early workshops of the show, she was originally cast as Trisha, a teenage Boop superfan now portrayed by actress Angelica Hale. But when the youthful character was reconceived, she went back to the drawing board and auditioned to play Betty herself. Initially, "I kind of blew it,' Rogers says. 'I was so nervous to the point where I couldn't get any of the dancing down. I was just a wreck.' But after finishing her stint on the 'Mean Girls' national tour, Rogers was eager to take another crack at the role. 'I contacted my agents and was like, 'I need to get back in. I just have this feeling.'' After a half dozen rounds of auditions, Rogers was eventually cast as Betty, and led the musical's out-of-town tryout in Chicago in late 2023. To inhabit Betty, 'the physicality was very nerve-racking for me,' she admits. The newcomer enrolled in tap classes, and trained fastidiously with associate choreographer Rachelle Rak, figuring out how an animated siren might walk and stand. She also perfected Betty's high-pitched voice, which sits quite comfortably in the soft palate of her mouth. 'It's almost effortless; it just flies out,' Rogers says. 'The way I speak day-to-day is probably more harmful for me than Betty's voice.' Rogers is a 'a triple threat,' says David Foster, who composed the musical's score. 'She has charisma and that's something you just can't buy. She's so confident, and every microsecond that she's on stage, she's Betty. Her facial expressions, her body movements – she completely transforms into that character and doesn't let up for one split second. It's pretty phenomenal." Just a few years ago, the Tony nominee was a restaurant hostess Rogers was born in Boston and started doing theater in Milford, Massachusetts. Her very first show was 'Peter Pan,' where she memorably out-sang the girl playing Tiger Lily. "I had no sense of, 'This is her song and maybe don't scream over her,'" she remembers. 'I was just fully belting at 7 years old in the little chorus of tribe members. But I just fell in love with it from that moment and never stopped.' Her first professional gig was in the 2019 musical 'Becoming Nancy' in Atlanta, helmed by 'Boop!' director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell. She followed that with Dion DiMucci bio-musical 'The Wanderer' at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse. 'I got to act in a way that I hadn't yet in my career," Rogers says. "That solidified for me, 'Oh, I'm in the right place and doing the thing I love. This is just meant to be.'" Between jobs, she supplemented her income as a babysitter, as well as a hostess at Jacob's Pickles on New York's Upper West Side. She worked there for two months before booking "Mean Girls" in 2022. 'That was a little side hustle I had for a while,' Rogers recalls, laughing. 'It's a good restaurant, but I hope I never have to be a hostess ever again. It was not for me!' "Boop! The Musical" is now playing at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 W. 44th Street).
Boston Globe
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Hats in the ring? Maybe. Hats on the stage? Definitely.
Or turn your eyes to Broadway, where 'Wicked' is still playing to full houses more than two decades after it premiered (and five months after an But as the hat-wearing Elphaba defiantly begins to dance by herself, making the hat her own, Galinda's mean-spiritedness transforms into something like empathy. She begins to dance with Elphaba. It's the beginning of an unlikely friendship that will ultimately take 'Wicked' to a deeper place — and that friendship became a key part of the reason the musical continues to resonate so profoundly with girls and women. Advertisement The history of the American theater abounds with memorable hats that have been used to swiftly establish character, time, and place. And, sometimes, authorial voice, as with Stephen Adly Guirgis's mordant comedy-drama 'The Mother------ with the Hat.' Advertisement Zero Mostel as Tevye sings to Golde, his wife, played by Thelma Lee in a scene from the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." New York Times Hats can also serve as a signifier of social status. Consider Tevye's cap in 'Fiddler on the Roof.' As careworn as he is, that hat embodies the countless mornings Tevye has spent delivering milk to the villagers of Anatevka. And the headscarves worn by the Jewish women in 'Fiddler,' including Tevye's wife, Golde, signal their attachment to custom and tradition — the very things that are under siege. Or look at the faded, flat-brimmed straw hat that 20-year-old Julie Andrews wore as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the opening scene at Covent Garden in 'My Fair Lady,' which premiered on Broadway in 1956. And, later, the staggering array of wide-brimmed hats worn by the women, including Eliza, in the Ascot racetrack scene. A hat can also punctuate key moments in a musical or play. Because we learn so much about the individual dancers in 'A Chorus Line,' we know what landing a role in a Broadway show will mean to them, professionally and personally. So we're moved by the big closing number, 'One,' when the dancers — those who got cast in the show and those who didn't — unite in synchronized movement, donning and doffing gold top hats to underscore what they did for love, to borrow a phrase. Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop, in 'Boop! The Musical' at the Broadhurst Theater in Manhattan, March 10, 2025. SARA KRULWICH/NYT A hat can also serve as a visual motif that forges a connection across eras. When 'Boop! The Musical' premiered on Broadway earlier this month, featuring Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop, Rogers wore a '30s-style top hat in one scene — the decade in which the animated cartoon flapper made her first appearance. Advertisement In September, Keanu Reeves will make his Broadway debut in Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot.' He's slated to play Estragon, one of the bowler hat-wearing tramps trying to puzzle out the riddle of existence. (All four principal characters in 'Godot' wear hats.) The cast for this fall's revival will also include Alex Winter, Reeves's costar in the film 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure,' as Vladimir. A revival of Kander and Ebb's 'Cabaret' opened a year ago on Broadway and is still running, with Eva Noblezada (Eurydice in 'Hadestown') playing Sally Bowles. Liza Minnelli in "Cabaret." Warner Brothers But no stage performer can hope to displace the memory of 'Cabaret,' the movie, was directed by Bob Fosse. As he began losing his hair at a relatively young age, Fosse had taken to wearing hats. Soon, fedoras and derbies — not just on the head but in the hands — became a core part of his signature style, as vital as hip rolls and jazz hands. When Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' was revived three years ago, the production simultaneously made history as the first 'Salesman' where all four Lomans were portrayed by Black actors, and connected with history. As in the 1949 premiere, starring Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, the revival opened with the sight of Wendell Pierce, as Willy, the picture of weariness beneath his hat, a pair of valises on the floor before him after another unsuccessful sales trip. Advertisement At the end of the play, standing by Willy's grave after he died by suicide, his friend Charley says of a traveling salesman: ''He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished.' Of course, sometimes a hat is just a hat, a way to heighten a scene and/or make a big stage personality even bigger. Consider the gigantic red feathered headdress — roughly the size of an aircraft carrier — that was worn by Bette Midler as Dolly Levi Gallagher when Dolly descended the stairs at the Harmonia Gardens in the 2017 revival of 'Hello, Dolly!' (Equally sizable were the hats worn by other Dollys: Carol Channing, who originated the role; Pearl Bailey; Bernadette Peters.) Jonathan Groff as King George III in "Hamilton." Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Disney+/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictu A piece of headgear can help an actor get a firmer fix on his character or shape their approach to a role — sometimes in unexpected ways, as happened with Jonathan Groff when he stepped into the role of King George in the 2015 Broadway premiere of 'Hamilton.' As the musical obliterated one attendance record after another, Groff's characterization of the malevolently amusing monarch became associated with the measured, careful glide with which the actor materialized onstage from the wings. 'The crown was so heavy at first,' Groff explained in a Advertisement And Sondheim? Fourteen years after 'Company,' when Broadway's greatest composer-lyricist sought to capture in song the arduous process of artistic creation, he chose to do so with a hat as his vehicle. In 'Finishing the Hat,' in 'Sunday in the Park with George,' his musical about the pointillist painter Georges Seurat, Sondheim gave the painter lines that captured the apartness and obsessive labor that making art requires, as well as its occasional satisfactions. 'There's a part of you always standing by/ Mapping out the sky/ Finishing a hat/ Starting on a hat/ Finishing a hat/ Look, I made a hat/ Where there never was a hat.' But Seurat — and Sondheim — knew what most artists know: There is ultimately no way to ever truly finish the hat. Don Aucoin can be reached at
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jasmine Amy Rogers Brings Betty Boop to Life in ‘Boop! The Musical' on Broadway
For 'Boop! The Musical' star Jasmine Amy Rogers, Betty Boop was 'always in the background of my life somewhere,' says the dynamic Broadway lead. 'I always knew who she was because she's in our pop culture,' she adds. 'But I definitely didn't know her the way I do now.' Rogers explored almost a century of Betty Boop lexicon, from the character's catchphrases to signature poses and coquettish red-lipped pout, while working to bring the character to life onstage in 'Boop! The Musical.' The ubiquitous character, who first appeared in 1930, has gone through several cultural resurgences throughout the decades. More from WWD 'Floyd Collins' Star Jeremy Jordan Sports Custom Suit From Paolo Martorano Louis McCartney Brings 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' to Broadway Gracie Lawrence Finds Her 'Second Home' on Broadway in 'Just in Time' 'I just fell in love with her so deeply because I think she is — at least for me, and I think for a lot of people — the embodiment of everything that a woman is capable of,' says Rogers, who originated the role during the show's world debut in Chicago. 'She believes in a strong right and wrong, and her moral compass is unwavering, and I love that about her. It encourages me to be brave in my daily life.' The musical opens with Betty Boop starring in her own fictionalized gray-toned world, frozen in time. Looking for a break from her unwavering fame, Betty travels (with the help of a gadget invented by supporting character Grampy) to the current day 'real world' of New York City, landing in a technicolor Comic-Con where Betty Boop discovers that she is still popular there too, just as cosplay lore. In New York she quickly befriends a teen girl, stepping into the role of personal coach-slash-cheerleader. The show, which features a splashy ensemble cast, opens with a large tap dance routine that almost stood in the way of Rogers getting the role — her first dance audition fell flat. 'The hardest thing going into it for me was the dance and the physicality,' says the 25-year-old actress, who ended up getting a second shot at the part. 'I was really intimidated for a while, but once I decided that I really wanted it, I just had to take it into gear. I went to tap classes and I just got myself back into shape to do what was being asked of me,' she adds. 'Betty is a cartoon, but she's also drawn in such a specific way. So the way she moves, the way she walks, the way she stands, it all matters. And that was something that was really, really nerve-wracking to me when I started out.' Less intimidating, but still nerve-racking, was the character's high-pitched voice, which has since become second-nature for Rogers. 'When I was figuring it out, I was so nervous about it that I didn't wanna practice it even by myself at home because I was almost embarrassed,' she says, adding that she leaned on her childhood aptitude for cartoon impersonations. 'It's always been ingrained in me to kind of be a character. I've spent most of my life being that cartoon character, and trying to cool it down to go through my everyday life so I'm not so out of whack,' she says. 'I think a lot of theater kids come from a place like that.' Rogers, who grew up in Texas, began dancing and singing at a young age, and fell in love with musical theater after auditioning for a local community theater performance of 'Peter Pan.' 'I ended up getting a role in Tiger Lily's tribe, in the ensemble. But it was really an eye-opening moment for me where I was like, I'm getting to sing, I'm getting to dance, I'm getting to have fun,' says Rogers. 'I'm getting to do all these things that I really, really love, and I'm getting to do it on stage and I'm obsessed. From that moment on, I just was hooked on it. And I've been doing it since.' After high school, Rogers moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music, and after graduation starred in several regional musical productions and as Gretchen Weiners in a national tour of the 'Mean Girls' musical in 2022. With the 'Boop!' opening night behind her — and Tonys Awards season still ahead — Rogers is looking forward to finding new aspects of Betty Boop to explore onstage, and continuing to connect with cross-generational audiences in what's already proved to be a life-changing role. '[Betty] has changed the way that I move through the world,' adds Rogers. 'I'm just a little bit more of a positive person lately, because I'm so full of joy and love.' Best of WWD Met Gala 2025 Committee Member Doechii's Standout Red Carpet Moments [PHOTOS] Remembering 'Gossip Girl' Actress Michelle Trachtenberg, Dead at 39: Front Rows to Red Carpets Through the Years [Photos] Carmen Dell'Orefice, 93: The World's Oldest Supermodel Redefining Timeless Beauty and Ageless Elegance [PHOTOS]
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Corrections: April 18, 2025
An article on Thursday about Mexico's dependence on natural gas from the United States misstated the figures that President Claudia Sheinbaum said she aimed to raise domestic production of natural gas by in Mexico. It is 5 billion cubic feet a day from 3.834 billion cubic feet, not 5 million cubic feet a day from 3.834 million cubic feet. An article on Thursday about two new versions of reasoning technology from OpenAI misspelled the given name of the company's head of research. He is Mark Chen, not Marc. A theater review on April 8 about 'Boop! The Musical' referred incompletely to the origin of Betty Boop. Grim Natwick worked with Max Fleischer and others to create and develop the character; Mr. Fleischer did not create her alone. An article on April 13 about soap operas misstated the name of a character on 'General Hospital.' She is Helena, not Elena. Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions.
