Jasmine Amy Rogers Is ‘Over The Moon’ To Be In Her First Straight Play on Broadway, and Even More Over The Moon it’s SCHOOL GIRLS; OR THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY

When Jasmine Amy Rogers burst onto Broadway as the titular character in BOOP!, we were in awe of her powerhouse vocals, incredible stage presence, and certified triple-thread status. Now, she’s taking on a new challenge: one where the rehearsal room has no sheet music in sight. 

Rogers stars in School Girls; or The African Mean Girls Play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre this fall, making her Broadway play debut as Ericka. The play takes place in 1986, when women vie for the coveted title in the Miss Ghana pageant. 

Theatrely sat down with Rogers to talk about her reaction to booking the role, how working on a play has changed her character-building process, and the joy of being in the room with so many talented Black women.

‍This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. 

‍First and very hard-hitting question, how is your summer going? 

It’s been really good. It's been busy. I finished Spelling Bee [at New World Stages] and immediately jumped into School Girls rehearsal. I was lucky; I got a good three week break right before the last month of Spelling Bee, so I went to London and I wrote some music, which is a little side quest of mine. Then I went to Barbados and had a lovely solo vacation, so it's been a good, really, really good summer.

Wait, solo vacation sounds like the dream! That's awesome. 

It was the dream. I recommend it to every person, but especially every woman. Like find a place you feel comfortable going, even if it's still within your country or the States, just spend time on your own time and like nobody else's rules. It's very healing, I think. 

That’s amazing. I want to talk a little bit about your crazy year. You absolutely burst onto Broadway. Everybody is your biggest fan, and understandably so! How has that response felt for you? 

I'm very appreciative, I will say. It's a very weird feeling, because for a long time, I was, and I still am, on the other side of that — of being a fan and being just a theatre lover. So I definitely find moments where I just am like, “what is going on?” It's been really special even being in the room now with the cast of School Girls, and the younger girls who are only like five years younger than me, but when I did the Jimmy's, they were in middle and high school, so they were watching me do that. It’s very special and it feels insane and out of body all the time. I'm just really grateful that I'm truly getting to live out my dream to the fullest extent so far. You couldn't ask for more. 

How have rehearsals been so far? What has the process kind of felt like? What's the vibe in the room? 

It's been two weeks. I think today was like our 11th day, and we have like a rough draft of the entire show, so it feels almost as if we've moved super quickly, but at the same time, we're really taking our time. [The play] is only 75 to 85 minutes, and it's brilliant writing, so we're really able to dive so deeply, so quickly. And because of the length of it, we're able to get the rough draft and then go back and dive even deeper. It's been just the most exciting and fulfilling experience. Like as an actress, I love to sing, I love to dance, but my dream has always been like, if I could just be an actress. I'm getting to really explore to the fullest extent of what that is for me and what it looks like to be a “real artist.” And this is a very great room for that. It's so incredible. It's exciting and so safe, which is really, really special because you don't always go into a room and feel held by the people there and the people in charge because at the end of the day, it is a product and we're putting it out to be seen by everybody and it reflects back on us. But you can tell these are the people who really care about the art and the story of what Jocelyn wrote. 

‍You mentioned loving to sing and dance, and of course became very well known for your powerhouse voice. How has the process changed for you when you take out the music? Has it been any different for you? 

It's challenging for sure. I think I've gotten to a point in my career where I'm allowing myself to not see the challenge as a detriment or a problem, but something to really pick at and crack. I think it's so easy for me now to go and experience this full array of emotions through song, but now without the music, it's a little frightening and a little, like my feet feel like they're on a little more uneven ground. But it's been really cool and I'm really proud of myself and I am learning so much about myself as a performer, the craft of acting, what's important in acting and what it really means to have like this really incredible book at your disposal. I've had the pleasure to work on a lot of brilliant, brilliant musicals, but every once in a while you do something where you can just tell the book wasn't the main focus because the music is so important and the music tells so much of the story. So to get to work on a book that is just so brilliantly, specifically crafted to just mean so much has been really special. 

That's amazing. You mentioned the feeling of safety in the room and I'd love to hear more about that. How has it been working with your collaborators, and Whitney White? 

I think there's always gonna be something very special about women in a room, a group of women, and then on top of that, a group of black women. This is a very sensitive thing we're kind of creating. It discusses a lot of topics that firstly affect all of us as people and then all of as women and then specifically us as black women and so in that, there's a lot energy that can, and a lot of nervous energy that you can have, but because we all share that, it's created this space where we're allowed to talk about it and allowed to feel it and fight through it and fully experience it. And it's been really special. And Whitney and Jocelyn [Bioh], because they're both there every day, have just really taken the time to allow us to not know what something is and. Work through and the rest of the cast as well. Like we're all there to support each other. So we let people have the moment to be like, “I don't know what this is or this is making me feel this way. This is coming up for me.” And they just are there and supportive and there's no judgment because we all know. And which is really, really special is that Whitney and Jocelyn both come from performing backgrounds, so everybody in that room knows what goes into creating a brand new character for yourself and telling a story that is just so close to home. They’ve just made sure that we all feel allowed to do whatever we need, individually, to process everything for ourselves so that we can deliver a performance that is as incredible as it can be. 

What would you say is your favorite part about working on something like this? 

I definitely think the familial feeling of being surrounded by Black women. My family is full of Black women, so it just feels really special to get to do the thing that I love most in a space full of people that look like me and experience life in a similar way to me. Everybody is just so lovely. Like we had a break today, a lunch break and we didn't really leave the room, because Whitney was craving french fries today and so she brought in a bunch of Chick-fil-A french fries so it was really great. All week she was like “I want french fries, I want French fries,” and she's like “no no no,” and then today she was like “how many french fries do we think we need to get through the run today?” No one takes it too seriously, but at the same time, everyone takes this very seriously. We just spent the lunch break in there, making noise, talking, and laughing. We always say we're creating a little family. 

Going back to the beginning here, I'd love to hear what drew you to the material and how you got involved in the project. 

I had never read the project, but I knew of it. I heard about it in the world of theatre. I got the audition and I immediately read the script. I found myself immediately drawn in, and I read the whole thing. I think what's really special about Jocelyn is she has an incredible way of handling this really tough subject matter in a very serious, respectful way, but then surrounding it with this hilarity and this very human behavior that can make something so incredibly funny, but at the same time so incredibly poignant. It’s hard to get that right. I was immediately like, “I have to be a part of this.” Then I got into the room and I literally started spewing to Whitney and Jocelyn about how excited I was to just be auditioning for this and auditioning for a play. I kept checking in for like a month to see if I got it. When I finally got it, I was screaming on the street.

Tell me about that phone call, where were you?

I was literally walking. I had gotten off at like 59th. I was on my way to Spelling Bee. It was a nice hot summer day. My agents called while I was on the train, and I was like, “I wonder what this is.” I had a feeling that it was good news and I got off, I called them back, and they were like, “how would you like to do a play on Broadway this fall?” And I was, like “you're kidding me.” It was like this weird Kismet kind of thing where a month or two before I even got the audition, I put on my Instagram story, I was feeling bold and I was like, “I want to do a play this fall.” Then the audition came and then to get the call, I was so excited and I called my mom and then I called my boyfriend, who's also a performer. I was just over the moon. I could not believe that I was gonna get to do a play. It's like this prestigious thing. I really do think like all acting is acting, so it's all the same skill, but it's a different practice of that skill. But I was like, “I'm gonna be an actress that gets to do a play on Broadway. Are you kidding?” I was astounded. I still am astounded. (laughs) 

Here at Theatrely, we're very Gen Z focused. When young people come to see this show, what are you hoping they might take away from it? 

BWAH! Immediately what comes to mind is the fact that you're going to look at these girls who are growing up in 1986 and you're gonna be like, “oh my God, these girls are just like me.” I think what's really beautiful about the human experience is that we've all been a child. No matter when you were a child, you were a child, and there's just things that everybody goes through at that age and the excitement and the way we talk to each other and the way we interact with each other. It's this very universal thing. Most of us, if we're lucky, have gone to school, so we've experienced these relationships and these “mean girls” and these really important friendships. I think they're gonna feel very seen. It's also hilarious, but it's all so heartbreaking. I think there's just so much for Gen Z to get from this, because most of the cast is Gen Z, so I think they're gonna see themselves in a way that they might not have been expecting to. I really, really am excited for that.