Christian Probst grew up in a musical household. His mom, Julie Piekarski, played Sue Ann Weaver on “The Facts of Life.” His dad is a dentist, but has a great singing voice, Probst says.
“All five of us would sing as a family,” says Probst, who has two siblings.
While his siblings, who also were into theater, went on to pursue other careers, Probst became a Broadway actor. He was in “Book of Mormon” for four years and understudied the prince in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bad Cinderella.” Now, he’s in the ensemble in the new musical “Boop!” which opened on Broadway in the Broadhurst Theater on April 5.
Probst says it all started while he was growing up in St. Louis, where he went to St. Louis University High School and performed there and at stages around town including the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Opera Theatre and, of course, the Muny.
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“I did 11 or 12 summers at the Muny,” he says. He started as a Muny kid when he was around 7 or 8 and stayed through his high school graduation.
It was there his Broadway dreams were solidified.
Christian Probst grew up singing with his family and spent his summers performing at the Muny.
“I was doing the show ‘Mame,’ and it was the biggest role I’d played,” Probst remembers. He was 10 at the time. “And I got to bow, and I remember bowing by myself and hearing 11,000 people clap for me. It was the best feeling ever.”
Even as an undergraduate at Yale, Probst sang with the a capella group the Whiffenpoofs, and took a year off to perform around the country. He got the chance to sing for Angela Lansbury and Julie Andrews.
In 2022, Probst auditioned for “An Untitled Betty Boop Musical.” At the time, the show was not only not headed to Broadway, it was still looking for backers — and a title.
For four weeks, the cast read most of the show from a script and performed a few dance numbers for potential investors. The show was undergoing constant changes.
“It’s a chance to see what works and what doesn’t,” Probst says. In it, he plays a bunch of different characters, including a reporter and a Times Square mascot.
It found a backer, and in 2023 opened for an out-of-town tryout in Chicago.
Probst returned to the ensemble for the first staged version of the show.
“Boop!” is about Betty Boop, a popular black-and-white cartoon from the 1930s. She was an alluring and flirty Jazz Age character who went on adventures with her dog. Similar to Barbie, she was known for taking on tons of different jobs and adventures: pilot, presidential candidate, judge, animal rights activist. This was all at a time when women had recently won the right to vote.
In “Boop!” Betty wants a break from being a celebrity in her black-and-white world, and, thanks to a time machine that her grandfather made, ends up in present-day New York City.
“It’s over the top, fun, colorful and all about love and light and joy,” Probst says.
But the show was still undergoing changes, especially now that it was getting fully staged.
“In our third week of shows, during previews (before it opens to reviews), we rehearsed during the day and then would do the show at night,” Probst recalls. “We came in one day, and we had an entirely new closing number that we all learned in three hours: the music, the lyrics, new dancing, and then that night we did an entirely different closing number.”
Christian Probst (far left) is in the ensemble in the new Broadway musical “Boop!”
It paid off, Probst says. The audience liked the new number, and when the show opened for reviews they were all favorable. Chicago On Stage called “Boop!” “something to shout about” and one of the best new musicals reviewer Karen Topham had ever seen.
A Reddit user, who called it “mind blowing” summed it up (emphasis theirs): “The plot? Incredibly stupid! The performances? PHENOMENAL!!!! The choreography? Fantastic!! The design? Amazing! The costumes? GORGEOUS! The music was fun.”
“Boop!” has a score from David Foster, the songwriter behind hits for Mariah Carey, Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Chicago and Ne-Yo, to name a few. He has 16 Grammy Awards.
When he was approached about doing the show, Foster had just decided to stop producing records, but this, he told Variety, “sounded like a good challenge, because for Broadway, you don’t have to write a hit song, you just have to write a good song. And I still felt capable of writing a good song.”
Susan Birkenhead was the other half of the songwriting team, responsible for lyrics.
Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell (“Kinky Boots,” “Legally Blonde”) directed and choreographed the piece and picked Chicago as the tryout location.
“He loves Chicago,” Probst says of Mitchell. “He says, ‘They’re as smart as a New York audience. They’re just nicer.’”
Bob Martin (“The Drowsy Chaperone”) wrote the book and Jasmine Amy Rogers plays Betty Boop in a role that many Chicago reviewers say was perfectly cast.
With all of the good reviews, a Broadway transfer was inevitable. When the Post-Dispatch reached Probst, he was still in rehearsals and previews, but looking forward to opening night.
“(“Boop”) is all about love and finding yourself and finding your community,” Probst says. “I’m very excited to finally show the world our musical.”
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