Julie Andrews 'singing' Taylor Swift? Gabrielle Mariella makes it happen

Gabrielle Mariella can deliver a showtune as well as the best of them. But she knows that building a career in the ultra-competitive field of musical theater takes more than skills and a good presentation. So Mariella, like countless aspiring performers before her, has come up with creative ways to get her talents noticed. Besides actively auditioning for roles, she networks relentlessly and collaborates with other artists on videos.

But it's her series of TikTok videos doing impressions of legendary Broadway singers that has brought her own vocal proficiency to the widest audience. Each a tour-de-farce, the videos show Mariella, 28, singing hits like Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" and Funny Girl's "Don't Rain on My Parade" in the styles of Lea Michelle, Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenowith, Patti Lupone and others, including herself ― all in the same song.

Her experiences have shown her that imitation really can be the sincerest form of flattery, she says. "The ones who haven't had as many impressions done of them tell me 'I feel so seen,'" she says. Even Broadway mega-stars reach out. "Betty Buckley DM'd me asking if I'd do an impression of her," she says. She did, and, as Buckley, zestfully hits the high notes.

Mariella hopes, of course, to one day be a legendary, impression-worthy Broadway singer herself. It's a goal she's been working toward since age 10, when her parents drove into the city from Wayne to see a Broadway revival of the musical "42nd Street."

The unique experience of live performance, she says, "is something that can’t be recreated. If you filmed it, you couldn't really capture that feeling."

She recalls a moment during "42nd Street" when an actor sang the title song center stage in the spotlight, and she felt goosebumps. "I had never sung before, and didn't know if I could," she says. When she started singing the songs from the show's soundtrack, she got her answer.

A helluva town

Mariella, who grew up in the Packanack Lake neighborhood and attended Immaculate Heart of Mary and DePaul Catholic High School, was soon taking advantage of theatrical opportunities in the region. She performed in IHM talent shows and trained at Gateway to the Arts (now in Denville). At theater camp during the summer, she performed in full-length versions of "Grease" and "Pippin;" at 12, she played Reno Sweeney, the role inhabited by Patti Lupone, in "Anything Goes."

More: On Broadway Curtain up! Here are the plays, musicals opening soon on Broadway

At first, she thought she wouldn't want to attend a college that was close to home. "But then I thought, senior trips are often to New York because it's great, so why not look at it?" she says. "And I fell in love with NYU." Mariella enrolled in NYU's Tisch School of the Arts to study drama in The New Studio on Broadway program, whose faculty members are working professionals. The first role she landed in college was Myrrhine, a lead in the musical comedy "Lysistrata Jones."

The program was rigorous, she says, with show rehearsals and classes in academics and performance consuming her schedule between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. "I enjoyed it, and it prepares you for that life," says Mariella. "The connections I made there will always be with me." It's not unusual, she says, for her to walk into an audition and recognize a director from her time at NYU ― for example, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, director of the Broadway revival of "Ragtime." Mariella appeared in a production of "The Secret Garden" that Dodge directed on the Tisch main stage; afterward, Dodge sent the cast a note saying they'd inspired her to take the show on tour around the country.

After graduating in 2016, Mariella "did what everyone does, pounded the pavement and waited on line on the sidewalk at 5 a.m. for auditions," she says. In a year's time, she got a manager who could set up meetings for her, and after that, attracted an agent.

The first role she landed was in a workshop ― a preview to help develop a show ― of the musical "The Visitor" at the Public Theater in Manhattan. The show's composer, Tom Kitt, had won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama after scoring the 2008 musical "Next to Normal," and was impressed enough by her talents to ask her to participate in the development of another show, "Almost Famous" (which recently opened and closed on Broadway). "I played Estrella, one of the 'band aides,'" she says, noting that being in a workshop is a "typical path for getting in on the ground floor of a show."

'Harry Potter: The Exhibition' to add more magic to New York: How to get tickets

Auditioning is "a full job in itself," she says, but because it isn't one that pays the rent, she needed to find a steady source of income that could complement her schedule. Her videography business, which grew out of her college hobby of videotaping friends singing songs for their social media sites, evolved into lucrative work in cinematography and editing ― and another great way to work alongside people in the industry.

"It's a job that creatively fuels you," she says. "You could be a waiter or work at a fitness studio, but it's soul-sucking." Mariella has been a director of photography on more than 10 series featured on Broadstream, a streaming platform dedicated to the arts and producing dozens of educational and promotional projects for corporate clients. She has also edited promos and ads for The Broadway Sinfonietta, an all-woman orchestra and production company.

Creating through COVID

Mariella's video work was especially gratifying during COVID, when she won a Sony Alpha Female+ Grant to make a short documentary called "Enough" about female creatives on Broadway, and the lack thereof. But the inability to perform with theaters shuttered was devastating, she says. Once again, though, she found a way to use her skills in a new, rewarding way.

"I had always been good at impressions," she says. "So I thought, why don't I do vocal impressions of legendary Broadway singers?" Her musical mimicry, which can be seen on TikTok @gabriellemariella, has drawn a huge response, she says, with one of her first videos getting nearly 2 million views. "One went very much viral and was reposted by Lin-Manuel Miranda," she says.

More: Broadway in Montclair Vanguard Theater brings Broadway flair to Montclair's 4th ward

Viewers who ask themselves "How does she do it???" can find out by watching her "Breaking Down the Impressions" TikTok. "I'll watch a bunch of videos of performers singing different songs to see what their mouths are doing and what their body language is," says Mariella. "I'll find a kind of match for the vowel sounds they make and practice it over and over. The people I'm doing have unique voices that make them great. It's easy because they're distinctive, but hard because I need to master them." On her instructional video, she gives examples of how she imitates Idina Menzel by studying the placement of her tongue, the "ethereal quality" of her voice in a lower range, and how she belts out lines that venture above the note of A.

Mike Ruckles, a vocal coach with multiple students in Broadway shows, works with Mariella every two weeks and praises her own range. "Gab has been training with me since June of 2019, and I was immediately struck by her poise, her powerful voice, and her humor," he says. "She is exceptionally funny, and we definitely laugh our way through her sessions. She can sing you an expertly delivered soprano 'legit' song, and then bring the house down with her incredible belt voice. I think it's only a matter of time before she takes off in a big way in New York City."

That future may get a boost from her 75-minute "Broadway Leading Ladies Sing" show at Manhattan's 54 Below, which bills itself as "Broadway's Supper Club," on April 25. "The artistic director asked if I would like to do a solo show there," she says, adding that headliners including Patti Lupone and Laura Benanti have performed in the fabled space below Studio 54.

She notes that Benanti grew up in Kinnelon, where her mother is a voice coach who worked with some of Mariella's friends growing up. "When I was in high school, I was a counselor for a theater camp at a local church, and there was a woman who volunteered to do choreography for the shows," she says. "She had grown up with Laura doing community theater. So I knew how Laura had made it and was really successful."

Successful enough to emulate, perhaps ― both in a TikTok impression, and as a career model.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Julie Andrews singing Taylor Swift? Gabrielle Mariella makes it happen