Gabe Gibbs, actor, writer, and songwriter, shares his experience playing the ‘Elder Prince’ in the National Tour of Broadway’s THE BOOK OF MORMON and transitioning from Broadway to work on camera. He discusses inspiration, creativity, and resourcefulness during a global pandemic and his future projects in this heart-to-heart interview with the Sunset Confidential staff.
By: Catalina Perez de Armiñan
How was your transition from Broadway to TV and which do you prefer?
It changes, is the real answer. Right now, I prefer the camera work. I think there’s something grueling about Broadway. Broadway is just hard on your body and your voice. So, to do that eight shows a week, particularly the role I was doing in MORMON, was like a lot of fun and I was very honored to do it, but I had to live like a monk. I sort of stayed in my hotel room or apartment all day and couldn’t really do anything to still have the energy and voice to do that show. I like the accessibility to things that are filmed. Broadway is kind of frustrating me a bit now that it’s so expensive. How is the average person supposed to participate in this art form? The ticket prices keep getting higher and higher and that drives me insane.
You are part of a podcast called Musicals That Never Made It, which started during the pandemic. What was the first year and the experience of starting the podcast like?
Yeah. So, we did all of it before-pandemic, we wrote and recorded everything in December 2019. We recorded everything ahead of time and then the question became, do we want to release it? If so, how do we want to release it? What’s it going to look like since we don’t know if or when further iterations of this can happen? Particularly with that project being a bunch of people all in one room singing sort of at and near each other, which wasn’t possible for a long time to get a lot of people to stand near each other and sing with no masks. So that was a specific problem for this show. Pre-pandemic we had a flow, and that became sort of just how do we adjust what we’re going to do given the pandemic? Do we want to release it all at once, or spread it out weekly? But it was a very fun project that we had no idea we were heading into the absolute woodchipper of 2020 with, but that’s just how it goes.
Can you tell us about the creation of your live show?
My manager at the time was looking to produce something live, and I was looking for a creative outlet to get my writing on a feed in front of people. I was hoping to get faster and less afraid about it. So, we found a venue in LA that let us put on a monthly show. I was doing the show with a co-host, so we did some writing, and tried it out at an open mic. Then we asked our most exciting comedian friends to be part of the first show to get people in the door. And from there we kind of built up, and that’s how it was formed.
You mentioned that now you are getting into writing and comedy more. Was that all along part of your plan, or did you learn along the way that that was an interest of yours?
I had always been doing those kinds of things for fun, be it on social or like for a friend’s birthday I would make a musical number to celebrate their birthday. And it wasn’t until a friend pointed out four or five years ago and was like, we have all seen that this is something you enjoy doing and you can’t help but doing, so if you wanted to put more energy behind that, that could be something that you could turn more into a career thing. So, in a way I was kind of always doing it, but I never took it seriously enough to pursue it as a more public venture until that happened. I think it all started with a friend asking me to write some songs for a pilot, and after that it became the live show I did for a while, this podcast, another project I’m working on with Nickelodeon right now, and then it kind of snowballed after that. But it started with silly songs I did for fun, and now it’s something I’ve put a bit more juice behind.
Is there one person in the industry that you’d like to work with?
I just saw Taran Killiam at a restaurant, and he was in a bunch of stuff that I loved. He’s a guy I’d like to work with. I got to work with Kenny Ortega right before the pandemic, and he was a bucket list guy for me, growing up a musical theater nerd and in the time, I was in middle and high school, he was the guy for sure, and still is the guy in many ways in that space.
What’s next?
I feel I have writer/creator Gabe, and actor Gabe and I have yet to publicly combine those two. My hope is that the next phase will be me being able to merge the two. The hope is to write something that I’ve written, and I get to be a part of that I’m excited about.