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 — Over his half-century career, David Foster has written and produced hits for every legend imaginable: Whitney Houston. Celine Dion. Chaka Khan. Madonna.
Now, the 16-time Grammy winner is adding a doe-eyed cartoon pinup to his inimitable list of divas. “Boop! The Musical” is a blissful, toe-tapping spectacle that imagines if Betty Boop (Jasmine Amy Rogers) left her black-and-white animated world for the colorful chaos of modern-day Manhattan. The kid-friendly Broadway comedy opened at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 W. 44th Street) earlier this month, earning rave reviews for Rogers’ star-making turn and Foster’s eminently hummable score.
Composing “Boop!” was a “great new challenge,” says Foster, 75, who has scaled the Top 40 charts through his collaborations with Chicago, Kenny Loggins and Earth, Wind & Fire.
“I haven’t written hits in a couple decades now and I’m OK with that, because I’ve done other things,” Foster says. “With Broadway, it was so liberating not having that pressure of the radio, so you can literally write anything. You can start off slow, speed up in the middle, change keys, have a different character sing something – it’s really awesome.”
David Foster wrote to Stephen Sondheim about ‘Boop! The Musical’
Foster was first approached about “Boop!” 15 years ago by producer Bill Haber. The goal was “to write music that you couldn’t put a time frame on,” he explains, with numbers that feel both contemporary and of Betty’s 1930s heyday.
The first song Foster wrote for the musical was the swoony “Why Look Around the Corner,” performed by Betty and her trumpeter sweetheart Dwayne (Ainsley Melham). He initially met with Haber and lyricist Susan Birkenhead at a Steinway piano store, where he essentially auditioned for the job on the spot.
“Bill said, ‘What kind of feel would you give Betty Boop?’” Foster recalls. “I walked over to the piano and literally the chorus fell out. He was like, ‘You’re in,’ and that song survived all these years later.”
The entire score is “just so gorgeous,” Rogers says. “To get to sing David’s songs – especially his ballads – feels so magical.” Her current favorite is “My Hero,” an emotional duet between Betty and the precocious young Trisha (Angelica Hale), who looks up to the trailblazing flapper. “It’s so heartfelt and honest, and it’s got that beautiful melody where it just dances along.”
There’s also the dizzying second-act opener “Where is Betty?”, which riffs on the cartoon’s “boop-oop-a-doop” catchphrase. “I mean, how could you not get that in there? It’s perfect,” Rogers says with a laugh. “That song was a later addition, but it’s so catchy.”
Foster wrote more than four dozen songs for “Boop!”, which he eventually whittled down to 20. He turned to his friend, musician Chris Botti, for support on the show-stopping “I Speak Jazz.” “Smash” powerhouse Katharine McPhee, who is Foster’s wife, also lent her electrifying vocals to anthems such as “Portrait of Betty,” helping workshop new lyrics and melodies throughout the show’s development.
“I swear to God, this poor woman,” Foster jokes. Every day, “I’d be like, ‘Hey, get in here! I got to try this out!’ I bet you she sang 40 demos. It was a lot of work, but she was always there.”
Foster is perhaps proudest of Betty’s Act 1 “I want” song “Ordinary Day,” as the vivacious screen vixen longs for some respite from the flashing cameras and rabid admirers.
“As you well know, when I lay my hands on the piano, it’s schmaltzy,” Foster says good-naturedly. “My whole life has been schmaltzy – Rolling Stone called me the king of ‘bombastic pop kitsch.’ My stuff is soft, but ‘Ordinary Day’ is not soft. It has a couple musical twists that I even surprised myself with; there’s a twinge of irregularity to it.”
The song is Foster’s tribute of sorts to the late Stephen Sondheim, whom he emailed five years ago for advice on “Boop!”
“I said, Mr. Sondheim, you don’t know me, but I’m the guy who produced your song ‘Somewhere’ for Barbra Streisand,” Foster recalls writing. “I’m working on a musical now, and if there’s ever a chance to meet, I would love that. He wrote back, ‘David, don’t be so (expletive) modest, of course I know who you are. Let’s meet.’”
Although they never got the opportunity before Sondheim’s death in 2021, “I still thought it was pretty cool.”
Foster is hitting the road with Katharine McPhee, their 4-year-old son
“Boop!” recently recorded its cast album, and Foster hopes to soon get some major artists to cover the show’s signature tunes. Next up, he’s embarking on a summer tour around the U.S. with Botti and McPhee, which launches June 13 in Selbyville, Delaware. It’ll also double as a family road trip for McPhee and their son Rennie, 4.
“The best way to tour is by bus – the country folks got it right,” Foster says. “I talked to Tim McGraw, who was like, ‘Yeah, we just set up shop at every show, the kids run around and it’s great. You walk off stage and you’re in your house,’” rather than perpetually shuttling between hotels and airports.
The couple hopes to travel with Rennie as much as they can before he starts kindergarten next year. In the meantime, Foster is already hard at work on his next musical: an adaptation of Amy Bloom’s 2014 novel “Lucky Us.” His golden years pivot to theater is something that Foster once manifested in his 2019 documentary “Off the Record.”
“At the end, I walk through Shubert Alley and look up at all the Broadway posters,” Foster says. “The director goes, ‘So what do you want?’ And I say, ‘I want to be on Broadway one day.’ There’s something to be said for the vision board!”
