That’s not to say The Wild Party was an easy show. Rogers spoke to me one morning in her apartment during the run of Michael John LaChiusa’s musical about a 1920s party that veers wildly out of control. The production (also starring Tony winners Adrienne Warren and Tonya Pinkins) only had a two-week limited run. Rogers had to take time off from her current gig, playing the innocent Olive in the New York revival of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. As she admits with a little guilt, ‘I called out of Spelling Bee a lot more than I wanted to during rehearsals [for Wild Party].’ 

She needed to – Rogers had to act the dissatisfied Queenie (who self medicates with booze and bad men), sing LaChiusa’s challenging jazz-infused score and dance up a storm. And to make it truly wild, she had to learn it all in just two weeks. 

‘It was hard and it was exhausting,’ recalls Rogers, adding that on the second day of rehearsal, she broke down in tears. The music was so tough, so dissonant in places, she couldn’t figure out how to move through it. After giving herself time to be emotional, she made a mental note: ‘Cut yourself some slack.’ Rogers has become known for making performance, from her singing to her shuffles, look effortless; here, she needed to make peace with imperfection. Choreographer Katie Spelman, she explains, built the choreography, ‘and we shaped it on my body. I just went for it. Trusting myself and allowing myself to say, ‘it’s going to be what it’s going to be,’ allowed me to learn it in those few days.’

At 27 years old, Rogers is already a triple threat to be reckoned with. She made an impressive debut on Broadway last year, playing Betty Boop in Boop! The Musical – where she tap-danced like a fiend under the watchful gaze of Jerry Mitchell and earned a Tony Award nomination in the process. But her first audition for Boop! in 2023 (while she was in the touring production of Mean Girls) was, as she put it, a disaster. She sang and acted with aplomb, but when it came time for the dance call, she couldn’t land the steps. She wasn’t surprised when her agent said the musical was going in a different direction. 

‘I didn’t take the time to brush up on my tap the way I needed to, or my jazz,’ she says frankly. ‘I kind of rested on my laurels and hoped that that would get me where I wanted to go. And it didn’t. And that was the first time that I had that rude awakening of, “You need to want it, it won’t come to you.”’

Months later, Rogers noticed that Boop! was still holding auditions for Betty. Rogers, determined to redeem herself, told her agent to get her another audition. She then dialed down, furiously taking tap classes at Broadway Dance Center – and secured a career-making role. 

Though Boop! was short-lived, only running on Broadway for three months, Rogers’ star power was undeniable. She went straight from Boop to Spelling Bee then Wild Party. Though she’s currently in a show that’s been running, as of press time, for eight months, Rogers is also regularly called in to try out for other projects (which she can’t yet name). And if Boop! ever comes to the West End, ‘I have first right of refusal,’ she says.

In the opening number of Boop!, Rogers sang ‘a little versatility never hurts,’ and that’s truly been the case for her. Though she’s still getting used to it, saying shyly, ‘I always laugh at myself when people say I’m a triple threat.’ Her boyfriend, dancer Joshua Burrage (currently in Schmigadoon! on Broadway), takes it very seriously: ‘He was like, You need to claim it. I said, “there are days I’ll fall out of a bevel.” He’s like, “there are days the best dancers will fall out of a bevel. It’s the same as the days when you don’t think your voice is living up to what you want it to be. That’s just part of this whole thing.” So I’m still rewiring my brain to be okay with claiming that I do it all. Doing it all doesn’t mean it’s always all perfect, or that you’re immediately the best at it. It means that you have the capability and that you have the ethic to work for and want it. That’s all I can do.’

A natural ball of energy, Rogers began dancing at the age of two, thanks to her grandmother, who was a dancer and enrolled her in tap and ballet classes in Boston, Massachusetts. Rogers recalls a story her family likes to tell, about her first tap recital at two years old: ‘When you’re that little, nobody remembers the tap number, but they were so proud of me because I remembered it, and was tapping my little heart out on the stage,’ she says, chuckling. 

Rogers’ love for dancing grew – at the age of 11, she was on a dance team. ‘I was doing tap, jazz and lyrical.’ Ever the perfectionist, Rogers adds, ‘I wouldn’t say I was an amazing dancer, but I was good.’ But when Rogers’ family moved to Houston, Texas, she could not find a dance studio. Dance was put on the backburner as Rogers focused on theatre and cheerleading – though at 5’4’’, Rogers stayed on the ground, saying, ‘I don’t have a split and I don’t tumble.’

Fast forward to 2017 when Rogers enrolled in Manhattan School of Music; she dropped out after two years when she booked a supporting role in Becoming Nancy at the Alliance Theatre (directed by Boop!’s Jerry Mitchell). Rogers had been focusing on singing and acting; she had given up on dance. But while in school, one of her instructors, former Joffrey Ballet principal Luis Perez, told her, ‘you’re a natural dancer. You just have to fight for it,’ recalls Rogers. ‘You have to want it. You can’t just rest on being naturally good at this. You have to work if you want it to be good.’

On the surface, Rogers’ career seems like a Cinderella story: an unknown plucked from the line and turned into a star. But it is clear there was an immense amount of work behind the scenes. These days, Rogers is determined to not rest on her laurels, but to continue to challenge herself, seeing how far she can push her artistry. That’s the advice she has for any performer.

‘I don’t think you need to be able to do everything, but I think you should try,’ she says, her eyes in the distance. ‘I think a lot of the things we get held back in life on is because we’re afraid of failure. I don’t like to be seen in-process, I like to be seen at the end, when it’s right. But you have to let go of that if you want to get better. You get to a point where people are looking at you and they’re saying, “Oh my God, that person’s amazing!” They want to see how far they can push you. So you have to decide if you’re willing to stretch or if you’re okay being where you are.’ She looks straight on, with that megawatt Betty Boop smile. ‘And that’s fine. But I think it might be worth seeing how far you can go.’

WATCH

Jasmine Amy Rogers sings Something to Shout About from Boop!

Jasmine Amy Rogers and Adrienne Warren in The Wild Party