Debbie Gravitte Has the Time of Her Life in Broadway’s Just In Time

Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Here’s Debbie! Veteran performer Debbie Gravitte has returned to Broadway in Just In Time after more than 20 years away. Playing matriarch Polly in the Bobby Darin biomusical, Gravitte says the experience has been “an unbelievable climb of joy.” Chatting with Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek, the West Coast native discussed her whirlwind career, which includes dreaming a dream as Fantine in Les Misérables, a Tony-winning star turn in Jerome Robbins' Broadway and a stint as the burlesque legend Gypsy Rose Lee in the short-lived musical Ain’t Broadway Grand.

Gravitte’s Broadway ambitions took root from a young age. “I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I could literally see the 20th Century Fox lot from my house, but all I wanted to do was musical theater,” Gravitte recalls. “Back in the prehistoric days where there wasn't cable, they would show a movie over and over, and they kept showing Damn Yankees. I was like, ‘I want to be Gwen Verdon. I have to be Gwen Verdon.’ I was obsessed.”

In her early 20s, Gravitte secured a part in a production of Annie Get Your Gun directed by Gower Champion and starring another famous Debbie: Debbie Reynolds. At the referral of the show’s associate choreographer, Gravitte found herself at an ill-fated out-of-town tryout. “It was called Spotlight and I thought I was going to make my Broadway debut. We went to Washington, D.C. and it closed out of town.” It was not a total bust, because the opportunity got her an agent and eventually, an audition for the musical They're Playing Our Song.

“I didn't get a heads up, but I still had to deliver the goods. I sang, ‘Ain't got no trouble in my life, I got the music in me.’ Marvin Hamlisch [who composed the show’s music]—I remember this clear as day—he stood up and he said, ‘Anybody who sings that song is in my show,'" recalls Gravitte.

They're Playing Our Song marked Gravitte’s Broadway debut, performing in the six-person chorus and understudying leading lady Lucie Arnaz. “Lucie was incredible. I was her understudy and I never went on. And then two weeks after I left, she was out for two weeks. Thanks Lucie, love you.” In hindsight, Gravitte feels this was for the best. “Honestly, I wouldn't have been ready. I had to learn a lot of things. That's why it's so sweet now because I feel like I know what I'm doing and I'm not questioning myself.” Characterizing her younger self, Gravitte says, “I was charismatic, I was loud, but sort of a mess.”

Gravitte’s last Broadway credit was in 2003, when she stepped into Chicago to play “keeper of the keys” Matron “Mama” Morton. This extended hiatus does not mean Gravitte was sitting idle. “I was touring the world singing with symphony orchestras, getting to be a million different characters. I made four albums. Three years ago I did this unbelievable production of Fiddler on the Roof.”

She also took time to raise three kids with her husband, Beau Gravitte. Show business runs in the family: Beau just wrapped up a run in the national tour of The Notebook as Older Noah. “I wept like an idiot. I had to borrow Kleenex from people. It was bad,” says Gravitte. Her youngest son, Sam Gravitte, is also a musical theater performer and is currently in the Broadway company of Oh, Mary! Her other son, Charlie, is the “civilian” of the family, while her daughter Ellie is a filmmaker. “She wrote a film for all of us. A family film coming to a theater near you. Could be really great or we might all divorce each other,” jokes Gravitte.

While family came first, Broadway has never been far from her mind. “I think I was more frustrated than anybody because I did want to be back on Broadway," she says. "I was a little bit in an interesting place in my career because I wasn't at the beginning. I wasn't 25 and an ingénue. I was a woman. I was a grown-up human, but I'm not Bernadette Peters, so I'm not a superstar. I'm somewhere in the middle and it's not like there are a billion roles.”

The role she had been looking for came in the form of Polly, a former vaudeville singer who nurtures Bobby Darin’s dreams. “When this came along, they said, ‘We want you to learn ‘That’s All.’ It is literally my favorite song,” she shares. “And then basically she loves her son. And I'm like, ‘[This is] the easiest job ever. Everybody thinks it was written for me and that's what it feels like.'”

Six months in, Gravitte’s enthusiasm for Just In Time remains intact. “People are so happy to leave their lives for a few moments and to step into a new world,” she says of the production. “It's entertaining. You learn something, you cry, you laugh, you're moved. There are show girls. It's got everything. I'm honored to be part of it.”

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