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)…