How a Breakout Newcomer and a Tony-Winning Favorite Are Bringing ‘Boop!’ to Broadway

variety.com:

Gordon Cox Theater Editor One actress is a newcomer making her Broadway debut after winning raves out of town. The other is a Tony-winning favorite, back on Broadway for the first time in almost a decade.

Together, they’re part of the team bringing the enduring animated icon Betty Boop to contemporary New York City in “Boop! The Musical.” Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: “Even though she’s a cartoon character from the 1930s, Betty has always been so ahead of her time,” said Jasmine Amy Rogers, the young performer who plays Betty on Broadway after wowing critics in the show’s tryout in Chicago. “Every woman can find a way to connect to her because she’s universal.

She’s tough, she’s sweet, she’s caring, she’s smart, she’s so playful and adventurous. I think there’s a piece of all of us that lives inside of Betty.” Rogers appeared on the latest episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, with her co-star Faith Prince, the celebrated Broadway veteran who won a Tony for her performance in the 1992 revival of “Guys and Dolls.” Prince has her own connection to Betty: “My brother used to tell me my voice is just like Betty Boop’s!” In “Boop!,” Prince plays a new character created for the musical — a modern-day astrophysicist named Valentina — who meets Betty when the cartoon character leaves her black-and-white world to visit full-color, modern-day New York.

She’s had a hand in shaping Valentina as the musical has developed. “Well, I wrote a five page email to the director, Jerry Mitchell, about my character after Chicago,” Prince recalled with a laugh.