If “Boop!” were a store rather than a Broadway musical, it would be a factory outlet, and the pile-on of merchandise on display would all be refurbished from parts of old shows – the top-hat-and-tails tap-dancing musical numbers, the two love stories, the various subplots such as time travel, a mayoral campaign, an orphan teenager, a cute cartoon puppet puppy dog. Some of it is wonderful (The black-and-white cartoon world versus color real world is a triumph of design.) One or two scenes made me cringe (a white-bread performer in hip-hop drag popping and locking atop a replica of the red steps of Father Duffy Square comes to mind.) Little of it feels original, and none of it feels necessary. But just like actual Betty Boop merchandise — the many toys, t-shirts, scrunchies and socks covered with her image – “Boop!” doesn’t have to feel necessary; it’s fun. And the main reason for that is Jasmine Amy Rogers.
Rogers is making a spectacular Broadway debut as the 1930s cartoon flapper with the oversized head, glistening spit curls and breathy, baby-like voice – but one that can belt with the best of them, doing justice to David Foster and Susan Birkenhead’s jazzy score. (Listen to samples below)
Betty Boop is no Aladdin or Elsa or Simba. There is no already-established plot around which to build an extravaganza. She had no defined character – just a look – in the animated shorts in which she starred in the 1930s, There is actually very little we know about her. The musical’s creative team, especially book writer Bob Martin, makes the most of this. In the very first song, “A Little Versatility” Betty boasts of the many characters she’s played:
“Another day, another story
where i hold fifty crooks captive in a quarry
Well- Shakespeare’s fine
but when you’re gettin’ down in the dirt,
A little versatility never hurt.
Shortly afterwards, a reporter says to her: “You’re a singer, a dancer, an actress, a star beloved by millions. But who are you really?”
“Who am I?… I’m whoever you want me to be, I guess.”
Her own answer leaves her dissatisfied. She is a big star in her black-and-white world in the 1930s, but she’s tired of the adulation, as she tells her Grampy (Stephen DeRosa), who is a crazy inventor (like Doc Brown in Back to the Future.)
With the aid of Grampy’s “trans-dimensional tempus locus actuating electro-ambulator” which looks like a chair, Betty disappears in a puff of smoke and travels to “the real world”– Manhattan (like Buddy in “Elf” – for which, by the way, Bob Martin wrote the book.) Betty rematerializes at the 2025 Comic Con at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. There, she discovers….color – in the costumes of the cosplay attendants, but first in the blue eyes of Dwayne (Ainsley Melham), a struggling jazz trumpet player with whom she eventually does a gig and who (does this really need a spoiler alert?) becomes her love interest.
She also befriends a Betty Boop fan, an orphaned teenager named Trisha (Angelica Hale), who mistakes Betty for a fellow fan: “You are the best Betty Boop I’ve ever seen.”
Much plot follows, most of which feels like excuses for individual songs. A lot of veteran talent is employed, including Tony winner Faith Prince as Valentina, an astrophysicist whom Grampy met when he traveled on a brief visit from cartoon world to real world New York forty years earlier, and has been sneezing ever since – which the Time Square Elmo and Iron Man explain is an unmistakable sign of his love for her.
Erich Bergen plays a mayoral candidate who turns out to be both a jerk and corrupt, and is opposed in the race by his former campaign manager, Anastacia McCleskey, another Broadway veteran, who happens to be Trisha’s aunt…I don’t know if I’m giving too much away. The show starts feeling a bit…diffuse.
What’s most fun about “Boop!” is the interplay between the color and black-and-white worlds, achieved through a collaboration of designers. The work of costume designer Gregg Barnes shines, for example, in the musical number at the top of Act II, “Where is Betty?” Each member of the ensemble is wearing a costume that’s in color in front, and black-and-white in back (or vice-versa) which, in coordination with Jerry Mitchell’s choreography, allows the scene, and everybody in it, to turn from color to black-and-white and back again in an instant.
Yes, this is inspired. But no, not even this is unprecedented. It’s reminiscent of “City of Angels” which created a black-and-white world and color world side by side, and won six Tonys in 1990, including best musical and best scenic design.
BOOP! The Musical
Broadhurst Theatre
Closing: July 13, 2025
Running time: Two hours and thirty minutes, including a 15-minute intermission
Tickets: $58 – $256
Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, with music by David Foster, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead and a book by Bob Martin
Scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Gregg Barnes, lighting design by Philip S. Rosenberg, sound design by Gareth Owen, projection design by Finn Ross
Cast: Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop, Faith Prince as Valentina, Ainsley Melham as Dwayne, Erich Bergen as Raymond Demarest, Stephen DeRosa as Grampy, Anastacia McCleskey as Carol Evans, Angelica Hale as Trisha, Phillip Huber the puppeteer for Pudgy the Dog, and Aubie Merrylees as Oscar Delacorte.
Lawrence Alexander, Courtney Arango, Colin Bradbury, Tristen Buettel, Joshua Michael Burrage, Victoria Byrd, Dan Castiglione, Rebecca Corrigan, Ian Gallagher Fitzgerald, RJ Higton, Nina Lafarga, Morgan McGhee, Ryah Nixon, Christian Probst, Ricky Schroeder, Gabriella Sorrentino, Derek Jordan Taylor, Lizzy Tucker, Amy Van Norstrand, Damani Van Rensalier and David Wright Jr.
