Broadway's Gavin Creel: In Picture Perfect New Show

Picture this.

You’re entering a world-famous museum say the Yale University Art Gallery or Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum—and you’re feeling overwhelmed, intimidated, and you just don’t know where to begin—or even what you’re doing there.

That’s how Gavin Creel felt when he stepped into the hallowed halls of Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He was there because he was being asked to create a musical project as part of the museum’s interdisciplinary MetLiveArts program, where performers create and perform pieces inspired by the Met’s collection.

“I had never been to the Met before this meeting and they’re asking me to talk about fine art,” he says. “The only idea I had, I told them, was to tell the truth, I didn’t have any museum experience here, and I didn’t know what the hell I’m doing. They said that was wonderful because a lot of people will identify with that.”

Creel was taking a lunch break at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center ’s National Music Theater Conference in Waterford where he was doing a workshop of the musical he expanded from that original Met assignment for which he wrote music, lyrics, book and in which he also stars.

On the grounds of the O’Neill campus, Creel was still sporting his cool silver-colored spiky hair from the Broadway revival of Into the Woods (in which he plays both Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf), which he’d head back to the next day. He was dressed summer casual, sporting a white t-shirt, cobalt blue shorts, flip-flops—and a funky straw hat and colored fingernails for that touch of dash. Despite being in rehearsals and facing the final performance his new work in a few hours where producers from New York would be in the audience, Creel presented the picture of Midwest niceness, sincerity, and personal engagement.

It’s no wonder the Met turned to the artist. Creel is part of a new generation of Broadway stars with a wide range of talents, commitments and fan bases that is redefining the field. Creel was nominated for a Tony Award for his Broadway debut 20 years ago opposite Sutton Foster in Thoroughly Modern Millie. He received another nomination for playing Claude in the 2009 revival of Hair before finally winning one for his performance in 2017’s Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler. His other Broadway gigs include She Loves Me, La Cage Aux Folles, Waitress, and The Book of Mormon. In London, he starred in The Book of Mormon, receiving the 2014 Laurence Olivier Award. He also starred in Mary Poppins and Waitress in the West End. Last year, Creel appeared in two episodes of FX’s American Horror Stories, opposite Matt Bomer.

In Walk on Through, Creel uses his own freshman experience at the Met to frame the basis of the show: the journey of a single man trying to figure out his life and loves through the art he sees around him. Its tone is introspective, yet playful, reverential yet sexy, existential yet deeply personal, as he connects to the art, the artists and even the figures in the works. Think of it as a show that might easily be called Sunday in the Museum with Gavin.

“You sort of get to hop on my back and walk through the museum,” he says. “I play Gavin Creel and I sort of dramatize how it all happened— that I have this commission coming up, and I have to figure out what it is I’m going to say.” As he walks into a room filled with Thomas Hart Benton paintings, he discovers the themes not only for his show but for his own life, too. “It’s all about color, light, sex and story.”

He describes Findaly, Ohio where he grew up as, “White. Republican. Religious. Conservative. Not a lot of diversity.” His family, he says, was supportive but also a product of that environment. “We didn’t ruffle feathers. We didn’t speak out. “Of their three children, two are gay, and it’s been…|CONTINUED|