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    To Play Betty Boop, Jasmine Amy Rogers Had to Transform

    When Jasmine Amy Rogers learned that she had been nominated for a Chita Rivera Award, for outstanding dancer in a Broadway show, her first reaction was to laugh.“Just because I felt a little bit like an impostor,” said Rogers, who plays the Jazz Age cartoon character Betty Boop in “Boop! The Musical.” “The dancing is always something that I was so fearful of.”Indeed, the tap portion of the audition process had been, by her own admission, “really bad.” “I was so nervous that I just shut down,” Rogers recalled, just hours after the nomination was announced. “It was very embarrassing for me. I did a little bit of the tap number from the beginning and I just couldn’t pick up the pattern.”It sounded “like somebody dropped a handful of silverware in the kitchen,” according to Jerry Mitchell, the musical’s choreographer and director. But, he added in a phone interview, “she went away, she worked on it, she came back and she was better.”And she got the job. The dance award nomination came late last month. A Tony nomination for best leading actress in a musical followed shortly after that. In his review, the New York Times’s chief theater critic called Rogers “immensely likable,” adding that “she sings fabulously,” and “nails all the Boop mannerisms and has a fetching way with a tossed-off line.” Not bad for a Broadway debut.Jasmine Amy Rogers, the star of “Boop! The Musical,” is a Tony nominee for best leading actress in a musical.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Boop! The Musical’ Review: Betty Gets a Broadway Brand Extension

    The It girl with the spit curl looks great for 100, but her Broadway musical, which feels like one big merch grab, is boop-boop-a-don’t.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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More