Punctuation marked the end of Jasmine Amy Rogers’s spelling career in fourth grade. “It was either the word that’s or it’s,” she says, digging through her preadolescent memories. “I forgot to say the apostrophe.” That particular spelling bee was not in the cards for her. But as a wise, hyperverbal 11-year-old once said, “The dictionary is a very reliable friend.”
William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee — the show that seared words like boanthropy and hasenpfeffer into the musical theater lexicon — is back in New York with a revival directed by Danny Mefford at New World Stages. Rogers is playing Olive Ostrovsky, the sweet, melancholic spelling savant who Celia Keenan-Bolger, in bubblegum-pink overalls, molded into a Broadway dream role 20 years ago.
Rogers is fresh off a dream role of her own: a starmaking Broadway debut as BOOP! The Musical’s title cartoon pinup. The show ran only four months but earned the 26-year-old actress a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Tony nomination in a season brimming with showstopping divas. Now she has a queue of bucket list roles on her calendar: Ado Annie in a concert performance of Oklahoma! at Carnegie Hall this January, followed by Queenie in the Encores! production of Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party in March. But for now, it’s all about the bee … and the comfy pants that come with it.
Anyone who saw you in BOOP! last season left the theatre thinking, “I would watch Jasmine Amy Rogers do anything.” How did Spelling Bee become the next project?
I knew it was coming back to New York, but I had assumed they had their cast already. All of a sudden, I got a work session with our director, Danny Mefford, and it was like, “They want to see you for Olive.” Olive was a character that I didn’t think I’d ever get to play, and also someone that I wasn’t sure if it was right for me to play. But I buckled down and I read the script and I fell in love with how fun and joyous it was.
How well did you know Spelling Bee before this production came around?
I’ve always known “The I Love You Song.” I think I heard it first in high school. I would listen to cast albums whenever I was in the car, and I used to play that because I always wanted to sing it. At the time, my voice wasn’t what it is now. I couldn’t sing the song in any capacity. Listening to Celia’s voice, the emotion she’s able to put into that character — the innocence really touched me. I just remember thinking how beautiful it was. The three of us who get to sing it — myself, Lilli Cooper, and Matt Manuel — we’re all Black, and it’s really exciting to put it in our voices and hear the song in a different way for the first time. But I feel very lucky that I get to sing it and I’m very grateful to Celia for setting the bar so high.
Coming from a show like BOOP!, a huge Broadway musical where your performance is the main event and your face is on every ad, was it an enticing proposition to be part of an ensemble show like Spelling Bee?
It was very appealing to me. BOOP! was a lot. I loved every second of it, but it was exhausting to know that so much of the show relied on me. So I was excited to not have everything be on my shoulders — which is something that I’m always willing to take on, but it’s nice to not always have to take it on.
How did doing something as demanding as BOOP! change you as a performer?
I definitely had to step into my own and take ownership of my work. BOOP! was such a transformative role. It taught me that I’m capable of more than I thought I was as an actress, that I’m capable of those transformations and finding nuance in a way that I didn’t think could be there. It was very, very scary for a long time. It still is scary now, but I definitely have a confidence that I didn’t have before. It’s taught me to play a little more, to be more willing to give all of myself to something and just see what happens. It’s made this process so much easier because I don’t have the same fear of trying to discover a character in front of other people. It’s not this horrifying experience anymore, for the first time in my life.
On top of the role itself, BOOP! also came with a whirlwind of attention and accolades, including a Tony nomination. When awards season was over and the show closed, did you need to just sit quietly for a while?
A little bit, yeah. This year was incredible, but it was so much, and I don’t think I even have absorbed every single thing that happened. I don’t even know if I fully absorbed that the show closed, because I just have kept going. That’s kind of the way I am. But I’ve begun to sit with it and what that experience meant to me and how I’m forever changed. It comes in in little ways, but I don’t think I’ve gotten the full picture of it yet.
Betty and Olive have their heart-forwardness in common, but you’re going from a character known for sexy glamour to a shy young girl. How has it been channeling your inner child?
It started off being very hard, and now I feel like I can’t turn it off. [Laughs.] I have my random Jasmine outbursts anyhow, but I found that they are so much more random and possibly disruptive because this whole cast has really fallen into the fact that we’re playing children. I think at first, we were really worried about it. But we just had to fall into the sense of play. Danny, our director, has made such a safe place for us, and he is so playful and joyful and it has freed us up. I can’t stop saying how fun it is. It’s ridiculous.
I have to ask how you’re enjoying the comfy costuming.
I’m obsessed. I keep saying in the dressing room, “I can’t believe this is all I have to put on.” And I’m wearing such minimal makeup. I can do it in less than five minutes if I need to. It is so freeing. I loved my BOOP! costumes but it was a lot of clothing and a lot of makeup. Honestly, I think sometimes my costume is too comfy. I’m like, these pants are so loose, I don’t understand.
Are you excited for Spelling Bee’s iconic moments of audience participation?
I love it. I was a little nervous at first, but Rachel Sheinkin, our book writer, works at NYU, so she’s had her students come and be our guest spellers. It’s just so fun to watch people have fun. We know what it feels like to pull out the inner child, and we’re kind of forcing these strangers to pull out their inner child too and join in the mayhem of it.
You mentioned that you originally weren’t sure you were the right actress to play Olive. Have you discovered any commonalities as you’ve gotten to know her?
Danny and I were talking about it and he said, “I’m gonna stop telling you that you don’t have anything in common because I think there’s a lot more in common with her than we thought.” I think there’s a loneliness that she has that I felt sometimes as a child. Not so much because of my parents but more so because sometimes I felt like I couldn’t connect with other kids. I was great at making friends; I think it was just an internal loneliness that I had. I understand that, and I understand the way that she cares for others, which is very similar to Betty. She is such an empath and she wants to take care of other people. So there’s a lot in there that I didn’t really notice at first.
It’s a testament to how well written the show is, and how well it’s held up for 20 years.
We have some updated script things that Rachel herself has worked on, just to kind of modernize it. But most of it is the same because it was just perfect. It’s really exciting to look back and go, “Oh my goodness, Rachel and Will got this right.” I never got to meet [William Finn], but I’m really excited that we are honoring his legacy and bringing Spelling Bee back to New York City in a way that I think he would have loved.
