Interview: Debbie Gibson Reveals How Broadway Prepared Her For THE MASKED SINGER

After Dick Van Dyke's big reveal on last week's episode of The Masked Singer, yet another Broadway favorite has been unmasked!

The ABBA-singing Night Owl was revealed to be none other than singer/songwriter and Broadway alum Debbie Gibson.

With only 24 hours notice, Gibson flew from New York to be a last-minute replacement on the hit singing competition series. Facing off against a singing lobster and Medusa, Gibson gave powerful renditions of "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All."

Fresh off her unmasking, BroadwayWorld caught up with Gibson to discuss preparing for the show in less than 24 hours, how her time as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway helped her prepare for the experience, and a possible return to Broadway.

Plus, check out new tour dates from Gibson here.

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We found out during the episode that you only had 24 hours notice before going on The Masked Singer. Can you take me through that whirlwind process?

Yes. And it's even less than 24, which is nuts when I really realized that. I had been in New York doing the Carnegie Hall Show with Joey McIntyre. I got on the plane that morning and my manager, I just sat in my seat and my manager called, and she goes, "Are you sitting down?"

Now, The Masked Singer has come up in my world before as an option to do it, but it was never the right timing. And she goes, "How would you like to be on The Masked Singer tomorrow?" And I was like, "Tomorrow?" So she said, "They wanna know you're considering it, and by the time you land, they will know. Somebody might need to drop out due to illness, due to Covid." So I was like, "Oh my God."

You're BroadwayWorld, so you can appreciate this. I was a vocalist letting her hair down because I thought I wasn't singing again for months. I was like, "Oh, my fear of singing is done." I literally had pizza in the Newark Airport and I was very tearful all day because it was the one year anniversary of losing my mom. So I was grieving, eating comfort food and flying. Not any of the things you would purposely be doing the day before sitting on a national TV show. However, it was so outrageous that it would even happen like that, so I said, "You know what? I love stuff like this. Like, I love being the go-to girl."

In fact, when I got Cabaret, I was called on two weeks notice. They said, "We need someone now. Can you start rehearsing tomorrow and can you open in two weeks?" It was the same thing. I was like in the mood to say yes, you know? I was like, "Alright, realistically, I'm probably not gonna advance too far if at all in the show, but I'm just gonna think about this as a one-off amazing crazy day." And that's what I did.

So I got off the plane, I got driven to my house in Vegas. I unpacked, repacked, got driven to LA. I was like, napping in between phone calls from the creative team saying, "Let's talk about your costume. Let's talk about the music. What key? Do you wanna do Fernando?" I was like, "Sure!" I just kept saying yes. I just kept saying yes because we really can overthink in our lives and over-prepare.

I take my craft seriously, but I don't take myself seriously and there's a difference. I just was feeling super whimsical about it all. I was like, listen, my goal was to not suck and to fill the niche that they needed me to fill because they were in a pinch because they have millions of dollars riding on having a third person in that episode. I just kept kind of pinching myself going, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm here. And this happened so quick and it was really, really fun." And I was like, "Okay, I don't think I'm gonna do the vocal performance of the century on very little sleep and crying and pizza." I just had such a great time. I was like, if somebody wants to hear me hit crazy high notes, they can YouTube something I did last year. For me, it was just really about the being in the moment.

I love how down you were for this whole experience. Underneath that big costume, when you're on stage performing, is it sort of freeing to just be able to perform and have like no one know it's you?

Yeah, it really is. And, and you know what else about it? Because when you're in the costume, it is this weirdly like meditative space you're in because you're peering out into the world through this mask. I was looking at the panelists who I respect immensely, and I know some of them. And I've been on that side of it too. Like, the holy grail of being an artist these days is to be a mentor/judge/panelist. And I've been it, I've done it on Sing Your Face Off, I've done it on America's Most Musical Family, American Juniors.

I was in the costume and every little theater girl dream I ever had was coming to me and a feeling of like, "This is everything." Like, I'm so glad I'm on this side of it today. I'm the one doing the doing today. And I love that. I love that feeling of like, when we're little kids, when we're wanting to do theater, we can't wait for that costume fitting. I used to wear my Sound of Music costume to school. The Lonely Goatherd. My mom would be like, "Um, why are you wearing that?" I'm like, "I don't care what kids think. I love my costume. Like, I literally want to live in my costume." I just had that sense of play that that connected me to the little girl performer in me. It felt really, really fun. It is freeing.

When people start guessing who you are, like Jenny [McCarthy] nailed it, of course, I knew she would, trying to like shrug or do something or not say something. it is really interesting. I saw a lot of people in the audience, because again, I was like very present for all of it. I was looking at people thinking, "Oh, this person would know who I am. Oh, this person wouldn't know who I am." Like the guy who I knelt down and sang to, he would never know me or my music. We live in this wacky world where these types of fun, very wholesome reality shows connect us artists to a new audience. It just does.

My tour announcement was always supposed to be this week. And so I'm like, how cool that I'm having this fun big press moment for this with this wacky, wild story and announcing going on the road. A journalist earlier said to me, "Is it, in a weird way, like tour prep?" It is because I used to be super over prepared Type-A girl, but I've dealt with health challenges. I've dealt with a time in my life where I have to trust the decades of training and technique and I can't always do the hour long, two hour long cardio. I can't start at a place of above it. Sometimes I have to come in from under it, if that makes sense. So it's taken an extreme amount of trust and vulnerability and that's what this experience was, too. It's a reminder that if you have a sense of humor and you trust yourself and if I trust my years of being a professional, I get to have these cool experiences. I didn't wanna delay that. I wanted to just jump.

So, Masked Singer, new tour dates, you're very busy, but would a return to Broadway ever be of interest? Do you have any ideas of something that could maybe bring you back?

I love that question. Yes, absolutely. I mean, eight shows a week is never wasted on me. So I realize like when I do it again, I wanna be really, really in that mindset. I was so all in when I did Broadway, I did not have a life at all outside of the stage. But what I really would love to do, and I have, I have been a composer and lyricist and co-lyricist on a couple of original musicals. I really would love to bring something original to Broadway. Whether I'm in it or musical directing I mean, I always joke I would do cabaret again anywhere, anytime in a heartbeat. I always feel like that Sally Bowles could be any age. She's a really ageless character, in my opinion.

The musical I've always wanted to do also is They're Playing Our Song, which again, agewise maybe have to be reworked a little. But who's to say that that couldn't happen? I love that musical so much. But my, yeah, my biggest dream would be to bring something new and whether that's something incorporating my pop music with original music or it's a completely new story, I'm not sure. One of the musicals I wrote is with Jimmy Van Patton called The Funky, which is really, really fun. I'd love to see that on Broadway. So yes, I have to get really rest and ready for it, but sure.

I'm gonna flip this really quick. What would you like to see me do on Broadway?

I mean, watching this ABBA-themed episode of The Masked Singer, I was like, maybe you in a Mamma Mia revival would be super fun.

That is true. I've been approached to do that regionally. That's a good one. That's a good point. I'm age appropriate already.

I feel like there's a coming of age story to be told. Especially with my connection to the LGBTQ community and youth. I feel like there's something LGBTQ youth-oriented, electric youth, like there's something there. It's been percolating in my head and I don't know what it is yet, but I usually start with ideas and things that I'm connected to and then they unfold. We're going to do Night Owl the Musical!

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Watch Debbie Gibson be un-masked here:

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