Singer Debbie Gibson Now A `Funny Girl'

Four years ago, Debbie Gibson says, the late composer Jule Styne asked her to audition for a revival of "Funny Girl."

Eventually, she did - and starting in October she'll star as comedian Fanny Brice, the role that made Barbra Streisand a superstar. The show's national tour kicks off in Pittsburgh (and includes a Jan. 14-26 run at Seattle's Paramount Theatre). It may be on Broadway a year later.

She has no trepidation about stepping into the part that Streisand made her own, says the former pop star, who recorded her first hit, "Only in My Dreams," when she was 16.

"It's the same thing with any revival," she said in a phone interview. "There's always somebody who came first. But you do the best job you can and you don't worry about whether you're imitating someone else. The last thing I want to do is play Streisand; she's a hero of mine."

Before starting rehearsals, Gibson will be recording material for an album, "because if I don't go into the studio now I won't be able to do it for a year." It will contain mostly new songs she's written, plus two numbers from "Funny Girl": "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade."

Like many singers, she says, "I've been having trouble with major record labels, so I'm making the album myself and it'll be sold out front of the theaters where `Funny Girl' is playing, and then I expect to make a distribution deal."

The album will be released under the name "Deborah Gibson."

"I never liked `Debbie,' she says, "but I'll be billed as `Debbie' for the tour. I'm just making a slow transition to `Deborah.' "

Gibson, 26, says she's no stranger to the songs from "Funny Girl." "I've been using `Don't Rain on My Parade' as an audition song since I was 8," she says.

She also is no stranger to musical theater. She recently toured in "Grease," playing Rizzo; she starred in the London production of the show for nine months in 1993 and she made her Broadway debut later that year as Eponine in "Les Miserables."

Gibson sounds almost fatalistic when asked about the chances of "Funny Girl" making it to Broadway.

"That's (the producers') intention," she says. "But I've always believed that nothing comes until it comes."