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'Deborah' Gibson tries to shake teen image
Album, Broadway role signal new direction
From Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Don't call her Debbie.
Deborah Gibson, who was a teen-age pop sensation a decade ago with such hits "Only in my Dreams" and "Shake your Love," is back with a new album, her sixth. Titled simply "Deborah," it should appeal to her long-time fans.
"It seems people do want to use pop music for entertainment again and not just to say how angry they are at the world," Gibson says. "I do think radio is gravitating toward melodies again."
But don't think nothing has changed.
Clip of Gibson in video for "Only Words" 1.3 MB/20 sec./320x240
791 K/20 sec./160x120
QuickTime movie"I think that if people associate me with 'Shake Your Love' from 10 years ago, I'm quite different now," Gibson says. "Only Words," the first single from the album, was originally written as a ballad. But with a little help from Junior Vasquez, it's ready for the clubs.
Though Gibson may be better known as a recording artist -- she's sold over 10 million albums worldwide -- she's no newcomer to the musical theater stage. In 1990, she starred as the lovestruck Eponine in "Les Miserables."
Over the last few years, she has appeared in two revivals of "Grease" -- as good girl Sandy in a London production, and as bad girl Rizzo in the U.S. touring company. She also played Fanny Brice, the role made famous by Barbra Streisand, in a short-lived tour of "Funny Girl."
Now she's on Broadway, playing Belle in the stage version of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast.
"The character I think is a lot like me in that she's a dreamer," Gibson says. "She's spunky and gutsy but she's still kind of girlish and kind of cautious."
Gibson, who usually sings her own compositions in the studio, has had to adapt to the musical stage, reining in her impulse to embellish. "It's not that they want everyone to sound alike, but they don't want to stray too far from what the composer intended," she says.
Not content to star on Broadway singing other people's songs, Gibson is collaborating on a new musical that she hopes will make it to the Great White Way.
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