Deborah Gibson happily embraces her "kitsch factor," as she calls it, but she knows where to draw the line. "Well, like, I've said 'no' a million times to [VH1's] 'The Surreal Life' and things like that," says the 35-year-old former teen pop star.

Gibson will reprise her Broadway role as Sally Bowles when North Carolina Theatre presents "Cabaret" beginning Saturday in Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium.

"I won't do things where you are at the mercy of an editor and your sole purpose is to be degraded." Gibson says. "That's kind of announcing to the world that you don't think you have a career."

Gibson does have a career. She may not have the magazine-cover girl star power she enjoyed as the teenage Debbie Gibson, whose hits "Only in My Dreams" and "Foolish Beat" permeated pop radio in the late '80s. But she's not sitting around waiting for phone calls, either.

She has already finished recording the soundtrack for "Skirts," a musical she wants to bring to the big screen. She's meeting with Maverick TV soon to discuss a development deal.

And she can always rely on her first love: musical theater. Gibson began acting in community theater when she was 5 and joined the children's choir at the Metropolitan Opera at 8. She was performing on Broadway by age 12.

When the pop radio hits stopped coming in the early '90s, she returned to the theater stage, and there she found something that eludes many of her former child star peers: respectability.

Gibson played sought-after roles on Broadway, on the road and in London: Eponine in "Les Miserables." Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl." Rizzo in "Grease." Gypsy Rose Lee in "Gypsy." And, of course, Sally Bowles, whom she played at Studio 54 for four months in 2003.

"[Sally] incorporates almost everything I love about every other character I've ever done," she says. "I mean, 'Les Mis' -- I loved Eponine's vulnerability. Fanny Brice, I loved her chutzpah, I say as a non-Jewish Long Island girl. Gypsy Rose Lee, it was that sexuality. And this is the combination of everything. It's like the ultimate female role."

A 'deep, rich' story

This is Gibson's second day of rehearsals -- she arrived in Raleigh the day before -- and the show goes on in nine days. Despite the nerve-racking schedule ahead of her, Gibson is remarkably calm and cheerful. After the interview is finished, she'll run through the choreography for "Perfectly Marvelous" with co-star Brian Duguay, a fellow "Cabaret" veteran.

Gibson says the version of "Cabaret" they are working on now is a little different for both actors. For one thing, she says, the Studio 54 version was intimate, whereas this one is presented on a big proscenium stage in front of 2,300 seats.

"It's the 1987 version, and both Brian and I have done the Broadway revival version," she says. "And so it's like, we're having to undo the muscle memory of what we've learned, and relearn. It's almost the same, which is harder than it being completely different."

Gibson, a longtime "Cabaret" fan, recalls the first Broadway version she saw starring Natasha Richardson. She went to a 20th anniversary screening of the 1972 film and bought a lot of merchandise.

"I'm a huge Liza fan," she says.

Gibson appreciates the "deep, rich" story of "Cabaret," in which American singer Sally Bowles struggles to survive as a performer at the risque Kit-Kat club in dangerous 1930s Berlin.

"People who don't know the story think that they're coming to see '42nd Street,'" she says. "They think they're coming to a song-and-dance musical, and because it starts off with 'Willkommen,' they're bopping along and before you know it, they're sucked in and emotionally invested.

"And people don't expect that, and I think that's what sets it apart. 'Chicago' is like a bunch of vignettes. It never really emotionally ropes you in like this. It's about history, you know?"

She says she gets goose bumps just talking about it.

New sense of freedom

Gibson finds it amusing when people ask her how she "made the transition" into theater.

"I had my Equity card, like, five years before I had my record deal," she says.

In retrospect, her record deal at age 16 with Atlantic seems almost like a detour, though she doesn't see it that way.

She still plays her old hits, mixed in with her newer piano ballads, on gay cruises and in nightclubs. She revisited her past again this year as the host of VH1's "100 Greatest Teen Stars" (she was No. 20).

She indulges her kitschy side whenever she feels like it. She was eliminated in week three from Fox's "Skating With Celebrities," where she was paired with champion skater Kurt Browning.

Last year, she finally said yes to numerous requests to pose for Playboy, and she attributes that to a new sense of freedom inspired by the theater.

"At this point, to not do it would be denying a part of myself that I do have," she says. "I am in the theater world. We do quick changes in the wings. I do risque roles like in 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' and 'Gypsy.' So I felt it was almost hypocritical not to do it."

Sure, she's still a punchline for wiseacre music critics who already have a comedy routine written in their heads before the shrink wrap even comes off the CD (her last pop album, "M.Y.O.B.," came out in 2001). And because she used to be "Debbie Gibson," she knew that when she returned to Broadway for "Les Miserables" in 1992, she had to do it better than anyone else had ever done it.

But she has outlived anyone's notions of celebrity stunt casting by now, and that's evident in the rehearsal studio as she darn-near nails the choreography for "Perfectly Marvelous" after a quick run-through with choreographer Jennifer Werner.

The hat toss to Duguay, the head pops, the spins, the sassy kick when she sings the word "stim-u-la-tion" all have to punctuate the lyrics precisely. Gibson, in her black gauchos and bedazzled black top, her hair in pigtails, commits only the most minor flubs -- and does everything she does right with gusto.

Watching from along the mirrored wall, Werner parrots Gibson's moves at first to guide her if she needs it. Before long, though, she just stands there and watches with eye-twinkling admiration, chewing gum and nodding her head occasionally.

"Deborah, that's awesome," she says when the song's over. "You're great. So good."

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.