This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: Hi, everyone. Welcome to a very special episode being brought to you from Broadway. I'm your host, Alan Seales. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and today we're going to talk a little bit about Gavin Creel from the vault with late Gavin Creel, who died back on September 30th, 2024 at the age of 48 from a very rare and aggressive form of cancer. He was one of the brightest lights on Broadway, and Gavin seemed to just be everywhere. Something good was brewing in our industry and beyond, always trying to better himself in order to help the world become that much better of a place as well. And you'll hear in this interview how much he valued doing internal work on his own mental health and how important things like social justice and charity it was to him, and just how much pride he took in the ability to perform musical theatre professionally, especially after learning as a young child that this community, our community, is where he belonged. And it's safe to say he always will belong.

[1:13] Alan Seales: So originally released in its full form as Episode 169 on October 2nd, 2021, here's a special trimmed version of that episode with just a few things cut that basically aren't relevant anymore since it's been three years since we recorded. We're just going to take a real quick commercial break now, after which you'll be able to have an uninterrupted listen to the actual interview. So once again, here's Gavin Creel from The Vault.

[1:34] Gavin Creel: Where do I go? Follow the children. Where do I go? Follow their smiles.

[1:46] Alan Seales: Today's guest received a Tony Award for his performance as Cornelius Hackle in Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce. He made his Broadway debut originating the role of Jimmy Smith in Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which he received his first Tony Award nomination, and has additional Broadway credits that include La Cage, Hair, which earned him his second Tony Award nomination, by the way, Waitress, Book of Mormon, and She Loves Me. He originated the role of Elder Price in the West End production of Book of Mormon, which nabbed him an Olivier Award. On television, he co-starred alongside Julie Andrews, perhaps you've heard of her, in ABC's Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime. He's also one of the stars in Ryan Murphy's new spinoff, American Horror Stories. Gavin Creel, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:32] Gavin Creel: Thank you. That's a wonderful. Thank you. I went inward during this pandemic in a way that I never have before. And I think a lot of me is still in there just trying to root through the crap and figure myself out in a different way than I hadn't before. And I was not really on board with the whole online performing thing. I was like, no, I'm not going to open my computer and sing for you. I just am not interested. I did a few things, but the number of asks that came in, and it was a real, I'm reading, I've loved Young Pueblo and he's got these two books, Inward and Clarity and Connection. And I was actually just reading a little bit of Inward down there and it said, you find out who you are by saying no.

[3:27] Gavin Creel: Interesting. Because I was raised, you should say yes to everything. You say yes to everything. And I think when you're younger, I think that's a really great piece of advice because you never know what your fear might stop you from saying yes to. So it's good just to say yes and jump in. I think that's all the time, not just when you're younger. But during this time, I was just like, no, I don't want to sing on your computer. I think I look stupid. I think I sound crappy. I'm sad right now. I don't want to sing. There's something really beautifully subversive about Broadway Bears, for example, started seven guys stripping on a bar at Splash down and they raised, they passed a hat and raised some money. And now 30th anniversary is going to be this June and it's raised millions and millions of dollars for this charity and has helped not just, and primarily at a time when nobody would, the president wouldn't even utter the word AIDS, there was no medication. There was just people dying in such a horrifying way. Broadway Cares has expanded its reach. It still is there for people, men, women, and children living and dealing with HIV AIDS. But it's expanded to disaster relief and the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative. And recently the COVID Relief Fund, what it's done for people who have lost, the majority of our industry doesn't have health insurance right now. And they've given millions and millions of dollars of the money that you have all given to the Actress Fund to help people in need in this terrible time. It's when we come back stronger than ever and making the changes in Broadway that we have to be making, I hope that audiences will, and everybody involved in our industry will rally even more behind Broadway Cares and the Actress Fund because of what they have done. It's like, you want to know what they do? This is what they do. They're there to help us in crisis. And that was what, two weeks ago there was a Broadway Flea. And so that started the same way. It was, I think a bunch of people from Chorus Line, I think if memory serves, who got together and were just like, yeah, let's, we want to raise some money for charity. They brought a bunch of their old props and things and this went out in the street and it started selling it. And that was decades ago. And now the Broadway Flea is this big thing that happens every year. And 2020 asterisk didn't happen because of COVID, but this year happened again. And it was in person, it was great. And you get these memorabilia, you get these fans that come out and all of that, again, all the proceeds go to Broadway Cares, Equity Finance Aids. It's incredible the amount of support that the organization can get.

[6:13] Gavin Creel: I'm lucky enough to, I've been sitting on the board of trustees for the last couple of years and I watch in that room, I watch theater owners and stage managers and directors and producers and Broadway League members and massive actors. And I watch everybody at the same table all there to do the good and everyone is in on it. Everyone is giving permission to collect with the red buckets and donating their theaters so they can put on the red bucket follies or the Easter bonnet. And they're calling their friends who are heads, leads at MAC, Makeup Foundation, who's donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to Broadway Cares and Broadway Bares so they can do discreetly placed glitter pasties and things like that. It's just everybody, it's all hands on deck and it's fun and it's service and it's making our community a community. Without Broadway Cares, I'm not certain that we would be as tight knit of a community as we are and we can be. So I'm very proud to be part of it.

[7:17] Gavin Creel: It's interesting, the movement I'm seeing now is I'm seeing these big Broadway names reposting that image on Instagram and social media that's like, I support the elimination of six hour work days and the 10 out of 12s. You know what I'm talking about?

[7:34] Alan Seales: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[7:35] Gavin Creel: Yeah, so what I think, I like that we're talking about this and this is typically not how the interviews go, but I love that we're talking about this.

[7:44] Alan Seales: Anything you want to talk about, just talk and just cut out the shit you don't want to listen to.

[7:47] Gavin Creel: Oh no, this is great. This is actually great. Because what I want to illuminate is that being on Broadway is one of the hardest jobs to have after you get it, let alone before you get it. But after you get it, then maintaining your physical health, which is separate from your emotional health for eight shows a week. And you're in a show, maybe in the case of Patti Murin and others having straight up panic attacks. And they've talked publicly about it. They're like, I got to call out on having a panic attack. I've got the dream job and the dream role and I'm stressed.

[8:30] Gavin Creel: Stress is a nice way of putting it. I feel close to death. Those panic attacks are like, I think this might be it. It's so deep and so terrifying. And the pressure that everybody feels. It looks like a piece of piss. It's just us having fun on stage, just running around in costumes. One of the most infuriating things of my life was sitting out to watch the Book of Mormon after I'd been in it for a year and a half. I just went out. I was out of the show and I came back early from a vacation and I watched the show and I was like, this looks like we're just up there mucking about. And I am like, I know how devastatingly hard this is. And this looks so easy and so fun. I'm going to tell you what, it is not easy. It is fun when you're in your right physical and mental and rested and supported. And that's, I think, what we're looking at with the community right now is, I'm a white cis man. And I'm gay. That adds its own challenges and it's been a journey and it continues to be a journey for me of understanding my place in the world and everything. But in musical theater in New York, that sometimes can be is a benefit because there's a lot of gay men who have come to the city searching for a place to belong. They found community and camaraderie in the theater. So my point being, I'm privileged and I have been given such unbelievable opportunities. I do not take that for granted. So if I'm thinking, if I'm one of those people posting, if I was on social media, which I'm not saying I'm not posting, but if I was, I don't know, somebody I respect and love, Celia, my best friend, I'm sure I know she supports the five-day rehearsal week. Absolutely. Let's get rid of these things that are not supporting people's mental, physical well-being. Let's talk about it. Just because it's the way things have been done.

[10:34] Gavin Creel: Yeah. When I first heard, I was like, oh, I'm never going to get rid of 10 out of 12s. I'm like, oh, why not? Why don't they get rid of them? Do we have to be there that long? I mean, I'm going to tell you, when you're in a show on Broadway, people think, oh, it's just so much fun. It is. Getting your dressing room together, whatever. When you're at the theater from one o'clock until midnight, all these days in a row, and then you're doing previews and you're rehearsing from one to five, and then you have an hour and a half break and you have to come back and you get into makeup. If you're playing a cat or something, you have a makeup plot that could take an hour and a half to put all this stuff on, and your wig and your hair and you're warming up and your body. Then you get on stage and then you get out, you go to bed, you're exhausted, but you're keyed up because all your adrenaline is coursing through your body. You're coming home, you're like, I need to lay down and go to bed, but my body is so awake because I have so much energy in my body, hormones, that I lay down at two o'clock, I wake up, I'm exhausted, my voice is like, and I have to go back to rehearsal at one o'clock and hit it. Then you do that preview period where you're rehearsing and performing at night, and then you open, and then that next Monday you're recording this cast album. You're like, who decided this insane schedule? This is nonsense. Why aren't we relooking? Well, we are relooking at it. Producers, I'm sure, are like, oh, come on, we can't do all these changes. I just say, oh, come on, let's just chalk it up to you got free labor and for a really long time, it's time to relook at it. We don't have to work this insanely. It's insanely hard. It's not good for our bodies or our minds.

[12:13] Gavin Creel: Well, the reason I brought that up in the first place was because there's a lot that happens, and especially after the social racial equity reckoning that happened all 2020 and pandemic and everything shut down, and we all got to-

[12:26] Alan Seales: Hopefully, it will be happening for the next 100 years. We need to have this reckoning every day.

[12:31] Gavin Creel: As a white person, until the day I lay on the ground, my priority has to be racial social justice. It has to be, what am I doing if I'm in a place of power 50% or more? Let's bring it up. Let's go. Let's go. What can I do? How can I influence? I'm learning so much. I know so little, and I'm like, oof, I have been crapping the beds for too long and too complacent. I'm sorry I interrupted you, but I'm like, I'm excited to see where we go with this.

[13:00] Alan Seales: Well, I want to talk. Let's get into your activism next, but I'll finish my thought. I'm going to say the only reason I brought it up was because Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDS, is helping behind the scenes with so many things like health insurance and rent subsidizing and things that people need help with because even when you're on Broadway, you have to fight to exist. Fighting to exist has multiple meanings now, especially given what you just said. So let's go there. So you're actually very outspoken for marriage equality and you make actual singles that are put out to raise money and raise awareness. Let's see, three original albums, one of it in a single noise, Raise Money and Awareness for Marriage Equality. So I guess I was going to just give a softball question and say like, oh, so why is this important? But obviously we know why this is important. It just is inherent in who you are and to have everyone be equal and have everyone have an equal seat at the table. So where did that come from? I guess we'll go with.

[14:06] Gavin Creel: I'm a little shy about the term activist because I know some actual life activists I've met and talked to Cleve Jones and David Mixner and Lance Black and Bruce Cohen. I guess even Lance and Bruce have, I'm saying they have careers and they participate in activism, but I'm the life activist, people who are doing the work every day, waking up, it's their life's blood. That's not me. I support, I try to use my voice when I can, but I'm in awe of the people who are really in my mind, really activists in the activism sense that they've dedicated their life to it. And I try to be as supportive as I can, but I don't want to oversell what I was doing. It started when I was like, I'm 32 years old at the time and I'm gay as hell. And I am loving my gay self in a way that I never had before. I was talking with some friends and what if we just got involved with just a gay organization and just went to meetings or just saw how we could help the community. It was a way I was never really engaged with the community before, frankly, because I was ashamed and afraid. And I grew up in Ohio, which in a very wonderful town, but it's very homogenized and white and religious and conservative. And there wasn't a lot of otherness there. So certainly I didn't feel like I had a place where I could be. It was the early nineties, the late eighties and early nineties when I was really coming into my self and understanding. I think I might be different in a way that the church and everyone around me says is really bad.

[16:05] Alan Seales: Would you go to church a lot as a kid?

[16:06] Gavin Creel: Yeah. Every Sunday, Methodist. Proud to be a Methodist and proud to dig Jesus and proud to dig Allah and proud to dig Buddha and proud to dig two sticks. You wave in the air and call spirit, whatever you want, whatever you want. I'm into all of it. As long as it's treating each other with respect and love and dignity. And that's where I just go, no, sorry. I don't know. This is going to be unpopular to say, but people who get really wrapped up in a lifestyle that is exclusive and they call themselves Christians or born again Christians. I've seen the light. I just call bullshit on you. Sorry. I'm not here for you saying your heart is open if you follow this way. No, sorry. That is not Christ. If you're going to go back, if I know, if you put me in a time capsule, send me back to Jesus Christ, sit next to him, he'd be like, dude, sit down. Let's talk about it. I'm into anybody and anything. I believe it in my bones. So at the time I was like, I think I'm starting to own that. I'll call it Christ love in my heart where I'm like, I love myself and I'm allowed to love myself. And I'm allowed to love myself for the little gay musical theater loving boy, man, child person that I am. And that's when I was like, I want to do something with this energy. I want to, I'm owning who I am in a way that I never have. So a few of my friends got together and we were talking about different ideas. And then eventually it was Rory O'Malley and Jenny Canellos and I starting Broadway Impact. And we were, it started because we, it was right after, was it November 4th, 2008? I think it was the fourth when Barack Obama was elected president. And I thought the world has changed. This is, and that same day, proposition eight was passed, eliminating the rights for all those people. This work that California had done to finally have some semblance of real change for marriage equality. And I thought, how can we have our first black president and hopefully we will have many more black presidents, women, hopefully too, like black women presidents, let's do this. But how can those things happen on the same day? And we were like, we went to a big rally called Join the Impact. And we were like, I love this impact. And then we went to a couple of meetings and it was a lot of people yelling at each other in our community. And we went, okay, we're just going to back out of this room and we're going to go try to organize our community. We were inspired by Broadway. We were inspired by Barack Obama and he was a community organizer. And after he graduated, he went back to community organizing. And I just thought, that's awesome. He didn't run to some law firm or whatever. He's just like, I'm going to organize the community in Chicago. And we thought, let's get in there. And we thought, let's organize the theater community. I'm coming up in this business and I'm just got this show called Hair. And this sounds like-

[19:02] Alan Seales: Which also marched with Washington in 2009.

[19:07] Gavin Creel: I was the guy who was calling Jenny Gersten and Oscar Eustace, our producers, and saying, Jeffrey Rich has said, can we please do this?

[19:14] Alan Seales: Really? I didn't know.

[19:16] Gavin Creel: I was in Atlantic City with a few of my friends on a day off and we were all being stupid in Atlantic City. And I was texting nonstop with Jenny Gersten and Oscar Eustace going, can we please do this? They're doing this national equality march. We have to go. We have to go. And they were like, you got to calm down. We can't close a Broadway show down to march on Washington. Maybe we can send some people who aren't on. We've got amazing swings. If they're not on that night, we could send them down. Two and a half hours later, I just get a text from Jenny Gersten. She says, okay, we're doing it. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And she said, it's the right thing to do, Oscar. And I know it. We'll talk to all the other producers. We're going to make this happen. And they lost $150,000. No one cancels a Broadway show. They canceled the show so the entire cast could march on Washington for marriage equality. And we organized 25 buses to take 1500 people for free down in the morning. We had Neil Patrick Harris and Sutton Foster and Stephen Schwartz and Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman and me and a bunch of different people sponsoring buses, paying for an entire bus to put 40 people on a bus. And we got 1500 people down. It was a life-changing weekend. I sang at the human rights campaign dinner the night before when Lady Gaga was the musical guest. And then I sang after her.

[20:35] Alan Seales: I was like, really? Couldn't you have put me first?

[20:39] Gavin Creel: Was she open for you? She was your opening act.

[20:42] Gavin Creel: I didn't know who she was at the time. Bad Romance hadn't come out yet. And I was like, who is this lady in the lederhosen with the purple glasses? She looked like an Oompa Loompa. And I was this sexy little... I met her and she was like, hi, Gaga. And I was like, okay. And then I think it was a couple of weeks later, maybe it had just come out, but Bad Romance hit. And I was like, she's my goddess. I love her. Everything she's serving I'm into. I love it. She's so wildly wonderful and fantastic.

[21:11] Alan Seales: Oh, that's so fun.

[21:12] Gavin Creel: Yeah.

[21:12] Alan Seales: All right. So then that...

[21:13] Gavin Creel: Okay. So that explains it.

[21:14] Alan Seales: I told you I'll talk. I'll talk and talk.

[21:16] Gavin Creel: No, I love it. I absolutely, I love this. I love these stories that you don't hear about these stories. These are the greatest, greatest stories.

[21:25] Gavin Creel: Let's try to unearth some that I have never said. I have talked about that weekend, but we'll find some along the way. Oh, I've never told anybody this.

[21:33] Alan Seales: Well, fine.

[21:33] Gavin Creel: Let's see. When was a time that you can think of when something went horribly wrong on stage that nobody noticed?

[21:42] Gavin Creel: Oh, that nobody noticed. I can think of a million when I had to stop the show. Like, really? Oh my gosh. In London, in Waitress. Yeah. A lot of people wouldn't know this, but Sarah and I should have had our equity cards taken away from us. Sarah Bareilles, obviously the writer and star of Waitress. I was like, it's a good thing I'm on stage with her, who wrote the show and is packing the house and is a superstar. And the stage door line was literally down around the corner and around the block because anybody else would be like, Creel, you're out. You're never performing again. We would just look at each other and start to giggle. And then the audience would catch on that we were giggling and then they would laugh and then we would laugh. There was one time, oh my gosh, something happened that the table wasn't set correctly. So it wheeled out and I didn't notice. I'm supposed to take my little backpack off and I put my backpack after I give her this gift, I put my backpack underneath the table and that's where it lives for the rest of the scene and then it rides off. Well, it had been set in reverse and I didn't notice right below is a rolling pin and a rolling pin beanbag. And I gave her the gift and I look and I just kind of put my bag down. I just hear and I'm like, oh shit. And there's a rolling pin rolling towards the front row. And I run out and I grab it and I said, well, that's not good. And the audience laughs and I look at Sarah and she's like, oh my God. And then I hand her the thing and I say, you're going to want to clean that. And she's like, they're laughing and she goes, don't think too hard. Just don't think too hard. And then they're laughing and we're laughing and we're about to do like a ballad. It's like a really tender scene. And I just looked at her and I, with my mic on and the audience is laughing and screaming and we're both just like, and I look at her and I go, how are we going to do this? And she just goes, we just are. And then we got very serious. The scene was so present and so intense. And right on the final note was like, you matter to me. You matter to me. We just start to laugh and the audience just roared. That was just one of the times, but that's one that the audience definitely noticed. I didn't see why. Well, that's part of the fun times, obviously.

[24:10] Gavin Creel: And that's like the camaraderie, the friendship and the chosen family that comes out of doing this profession is unbelievably strong and force bonds that you can't break. And I feel like part of this too is, I say this a lot on the podcast is that the rehearsal process and sometimes even going through the shows, depending on what's happening is opening yourself up to experiencing a form of trauma with a group of people. And sometimes the show is about literal trauma that your body is experiencing eight times a week. And so the bonding, the connections that you are forming with these people are experiences that no others will ever have and can't be broken. It's why you sign up for this rigorous schedule. It's the community. It's the people. And again, not to bring up the movement that we're in is I have felt such wonderful, beautiful community. And my eyes are open now that so many people of color in our industry have not felt that openness, have not felt the sense of, I got your backness. Now I have been really lucky to do a bunch of shows with a lot of people of color. And it's one of my joys to be able to be in a company that is acknowledging the human race in a representational way, an authentically represented, a truthful way. But it breaks my heart to think that, I mean, I don't know, black cast members of Hair or Book of Mormon are beyond inspiring, beyond talented, beyond wonderful. And to think that they were carrying trauma or pain in ways that I thought these people are unbelievably talented and wonderful and happy and on their gig and fierce and wonderful. I just think I'm really sad that I didn't realize, I didn't really fully grasp how painful so much of our industry has been for those people who look, would never let on the pain that they were in. And now it's ours as white people to reckon with and to really see the truth of it and see how we can be fully anti-racist and fully engaged in that conversation that is like, yes, I am wrong. I am racist. These thoughts are racist. I have perpetuated a system that is racist. The entire foundation of musical theater was built on minstrelsy. If we can just acknowledge that original truth, that musical theater was blackface. The art form was built on blackface. Original white company members of Showboat were painting their face. It was customary. It was something. It was there. It was wrong. Then it's certainly wrong now. We just have to acknowledge the truth. It's not a blame game. It's just like, wow. Because if we don't acknowledge the truth and we just go, we just need to move on or this is moving too quickly, we're never going to get the work done. Nicole Johnson is a name I want to mention on this podcast who runs a program called Edify and she's holding spaces. She's brilliantly holding spaces for white artists and producers and casting directors and people in our industry to learn how to become better advocates and anti-racist and to obliterate white systemic racism and oppression within the industry. I have learned so much. I continue to learn so much from her and I can call her a friend now, but she's a mentor of mine. She's like a spirit guide. She's this unbelievable soul that is holding space in such a courageous way. She's just one name I would like to highlight and celebrate right now.

[28:13] Alan Seales: Have you ever done ayahuasca?

[28:20] Gavin Creel: No. I don't know if I could. I've had friends who've done it. Have you done it?

[28:30] Alan Seales: No. I have a close friend who's done it multiple times and I'm so curious about it because I personally, in the last couple of years, I just started seeing a therapist just now, but it's been a couple of years. Thank you. My birthday's coming up and I'm over 40 already and just now I'm seeing, years ago, started seeing a therapist. I wish it was okay to have been seeing a therapist since when I was a kid, a teenager. We can say right now to teenagers everywhere, it is okay to see a therapist. It's very okay. It is not just okay, it's imperative. To have someone objective to sit there and listen to you and help you parse through this very complicated, difficult thing called life is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Spend the money, find somebody you love. If you don't love them, go on to the next one. Sorry, I support it. You were saying, I'm intrigued to how therapy is going to ... Did your therapist want you to do ayahuasca?

[29:24] Gavin Creel: No. Well, did she? I think maybe she's brought it up before. I think she's supportive of it. I was literally planning a trip to South America to do it and then COVID hit and I just haven't picked that up again. Because I feel like the way that you've been speaking and the way that you sort of approach topics is very much in the same vein, I think, of people who are open to experiencing a frame of altered consciousness that takes you to a place to allow you to look at things in a way you didn't see them before because of your conscious filters that you may or may not know you have. That you think, probably don't know you have, that you think it's just how things are. It's just who I am. And I'm going to tell you, this last two years for me, because of a lot of loss and a lot of pain and then not being able to distract myself from any of it, I had to look in a way, I'm still looking in a way that now I can't unsee. And I will say, for those of you who don't know what ayahuasca is, I believe it's a tea, right? It's from a plant or something. It's Peruvian, I believe. But it's just something, basically, it's like a tea you drink and then you, I've heard stories where you have a bucket where you like puke a couple of times and then you trip balls. But it's all natural.

[30:45] Gavin Creel: Completely. Yes. And it's enlightening and a lot of my friends have done it and I'm inspired by all the stories they say. I don't love barfing, so it kind of makes me nervous. I just don't want to barf. But I mean, according to like Chelsea, like Chelsea Handler is like, you throw up and you shit your pants, but everybody, everybody doesn't shit their pants. I think it's, oh yeah, who hasn't shit their pants? I mean, there's time and place for everything and that time and place is college.

[31:09] Alan Seales: Okay. Yeah. Or last week. I don't know. But I mean, you did just turn 25 again, so.

[31:14] Gavin Creel: Yes, I did.

[31:15] Alan Seales: It's time to shit the, my God, what am I saying?

[31:18] Gavin Creel: But I do want to say, I think I have not done ayahuasca. The most serious drug I've ever done, the only drug I've ever done is pot and I can't do it anymore because it makes me so paranoid. And I quit drinking for this year and I got to say, I really am, I was inspired by my best friend, Celia to quit drinking for the year of 2020. God bless her. I don't know how she did it. That's the year everybody was like, give me that booze. But I was, I wasn't ready to do it in 2020 and then I tried it this year and it's really been really kind of enlightening for me.

[31:46] Gavin Creel: I would just say the thing that ayahuasca does, I think any substance that you might want to try, obviously do it in a safe space and with people you trust that will take care of you and provide support during the process of, if it's a shot, you want to do a shot of Jaeger. I don't know, just having people nearby that have walked this path, maybe it's very helpful. But I do also think I didn't, I didn't, I haven't drank in a year and I have been doing some major ayahuasca like discoveries with meditation and with morning pages and the artist way and writing and creativity. I have tried to find quote unquote other natural ways. I don't want to say that any way that I judge anybody who wants to try a substance of some kind or experiment with microdosing or macrodosing or whatever. But I will say, I think at the core of it, I think we're all looking for the same thing.

[33:01] Alan Seales: Absolutely. That's what I was getting at. That's what I was getting at. And that's why I think people are so attracted to the theater, which something you said at the very beginning, I'll go back to it is because as a closeted gay kid growing up in this conservative Ohio place, you found your home. You finally found acceptance. You were looking for acceptance. You were looking for your sexuality, but there's other people who are looking for acceptance in one way, one way or another, you know, like one parent was one way, one parent was another. You didn't have parents. Maybe you lived in a place that didn't, you know, where you were bullied for one, for how you would look, things you can't help. Right. And so you're looking to find that acceptance and without therapy being readily available, an easy alternative, I'll put easy in quotes is the theater community.

[33:59] Gavin Creel: I was going to say, I thought you were going to say an easy alternative is ayahuasca.

[34:01] Alan Seales: Ayahuasca. I don't agree with that. Yes. I think, and the theater community. Yeah. I think if you're, if, if it's your passion, I think somebody who's listening, who might not be into theater, but think I want that kind of support. I'm going to run and try to be an actor. I might, and you've never acted before. I'm saying it's not impossible, but there are definitely easier paths to get enlightenment. And because a lot of the reasons why I'm in therapy are because of the theater community. I mean, let's get real here. Like you, you know, it's, it is a tough life and a tough profession. And I, again, am a white cisgender privileged man who has had success and has been given money and has been given opportunity after opportunity. And I also know the deep paralyzing pain of the industry of not getting hired, of not being working, of not, and that's me saying it. So I don't want to say I don't realize my intense privilege and the access I have. I don't take it lightly. I try to use it responsibly and gracefully. And I also try and I fail at this, but I try to find ways to include people who might not have that access, but man, it's having a therapist, having someone you can confide in, trust. Honestly, having somebody, you can literally say, I mean, I, sometimes I go and talk to my therapist. I'm like, what is the dirtiest, grossest, most repulsive part of my personality that I, I just want him to go. That's disgusting. Get out of my office. I want to like unearth the lowest, deepest, grossest thing so that I can say like once I did this or once, this is what I actually want to say to Donald Trump, you know, whatever. But like, and he never, he always holds space for it. He's like, okay, do you want to talk about it? And to have that kind of unconditional acceptance, it's like, wow, there's nowhere I can go that you won't go with me. It is a, it is, it is a support like you may never know. And they're doing it because you're giving them hundreds of dollars an hour. Because let me tell you the truth. You think I don't need a therapist. I have my friends. That's selfish. That is selfish because your friends have their problems and I have my problems just like Celia and I know, you know, like Sarah and I talk and she's like, I can only be, and I can only be as supportive as I can be because I've only lived the life I've lived. So therefore I only know the truths that I know and I have experienced and live. And the older I get, I become more compassionate, more open. But it's hard. Sometimes I just want to like turn the table over and be like, I just don't care. I don't want to talk about it. I'm angry.

[36:33] Gavin Creel: Your therapists, are they trained, if they're trained well, are there to try to be as objective and supportive as possible. That's why you pay them. So you can go and talk about yourself for an entire hour and not feel bad. Because if you talk about yourself for an hour to your friends, guess what you're not going to have a lot of after a while? Friends. Shut up. And which my friends have told me many times. Oh, we get it. Yeah.

[37:04] Alan Seales: No, I, I, I love that. And, and I think it's, there's a whole level of people. I mean, there's multiple reasons I think why people get into theater, but this whole level of like, you, you want, you need the attention, like you crave it slash you need it to for yourself validation. And so exploring all of that, or maybe you, you don't have a strong group of friends. So it's a nice place to, to automatically because I have a group of friends. I knew when I was first starting out in, in high school and college, there were so many people that, you know, in their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond who were doing community theater with me that I was like, oh, this is really weird. Like why this, you know, community theaters for kids. But for now that I am sort of around the same age group, it's, it's like, it's so hard to make friends as adults because you, you're busy. Like a lot of people have kids, a lot of people have a job or multiple jobs or like adulting in general is just fricking hard and everybody needs something and everybody wants something. And then I'm sure, you know, you're in a place where everyone wants you to do something and for them and often for free. So people come to you and, and you've got to have your guard up, I imagine that's got to be stressful.

[38:24] Gavin Creel: Well, it's a process to the word, no. It's a really scary process. And you worried, oh, they're going to hate me or they're going to be upset. They're going to think, who do you think you are saying no to this opportunity. And I'm just here to say the word no is one of the most freeing, empowering words I have learned. And I continue to try to use it more and more. It doesn't mean I'm negative. It doesn't mean that I am unwilling or not collaborative. It means no, that is a boundary that I'm not willing to cross for my mental health, for my physical health, for my free time. Somebody recently told me, I'm sorry, I can't credit it appropriately, but it's a really great habit. They say, you know, with your like your phone calendar, it's something that I want to do is you should schedule a date with yourself on repeat every day from like six to eight at night. That you always see it every day you look down so that when somebody asks you or at a time in the day when you're spinning and you're busy, oh, so if I do blank, I'm abandoning myself. I'm going to, okay, that's worth it. So I'm going to erase that date with myself for this day. And I'm going to put that in its place. Then you will start seeing how often you're abandoning yourself. You're making dates with other people. And when you can see it on your phone every day, oh, there's a date with myself. Do I want to take that? I would venture to say a lot of us don't ever make that date with ourselves. And I didn't do it for the longest time because I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid of the quiet of my own company. I still really grapple with it. It's at my self-worth of like, do I really want to hang out with myself? I want somebody around. You said it earlier, that external validation. I was a junkie on it. I want a lover. I want a friend. I want somebody nearby. I want even somebody I don't even like that much just to validate me, just my presence. They're willing to hang out with me. It's like Creel, you got to sort some of this out yourself. And I will say, people may be going, oh, how pathetic. And I go, that's fine. But I would venture to say most of us feel this way.

[40:36] Alan Seales: I was going to say, I don't think people are saying pathetic. I think people who are listening to this podcast specifically are like, yeah, me too.

[40:39] Gavin Creel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, can I vacation by myself? Can I eat a dinner by myself? Can I go to the movies by myself? Those used to be things that terrified me. Vacationing by myself still is scary, but I've done it a couple of times. And I'm going to tell you, boring. Happiness is so much more fun when you're sharing it with someone. But also I have learned through the pandemic, I'm going to Hawaii for two weeks by myself. I'm going to see a couple of my friends in the middle of it, but I'm kind of really, because of the pandemic and this time I've had to be alone, I was alone. I'm like, come on Maui, let's dance. Let's get on that balcony and let me meditate for 40 minutes. And let me, let me write. I'm going to take my little keyboard. I'm going to write some songs. I'm going to get back into that whole thing, which I've been, I've been buried in all this time with the show. Segway. I'm going to talk about a show I'm writing.

[41:38] Alan Seales: Okay. Yeah. So before we wrap up, are you allowed to talk about whatever you're writing?

[41:41] Gavin Creel: Yes, absolutely.

[41:42] Alan Seales: Yeah. Let's hear it.

[41:43] Gavin Creel: So I'm, I'm really excited to talk about this. And if you're, if you're out there and there's still tickets available, go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art website and you can go on the search thing and just put Gavin Creel and I'm doing my first ever, I'm calling it a world premiere, a universe premiere of a piece that I'm working on and I'm hoping to bring it to Broadway. It's, it's, I was given a commission from the Met Live Arts organization, the Met Live Arts series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I didn't know existed because I'd never been to the Met before. I am not a museum person at all. For a million reasons. You want to understand that. Come see the show. Cause I talk, that's what the show is about. I'm calling the show, it's Met-a. It's kind of like a Met-a moment because I'm playing the character of Gavin Creel and I have this amazing band of seven, eight piece band, I think. And I was given a membership card and given the directive of explore the museum. And when you come up with an idea, tell us and we'll help you present it. And it could be Alan Cumming was a theater person who has done this a couple of times, but it's, it's the Met Live Arts series is so inspiring. It's DJs and opera singers and opera writers and directors and clarinetists and Roseanne Cash and Sting and Alan Cumming and, and people who you, some of you might know, some of you might not, international stars, performance artists and musical theater people like me and Alan. And it's whatever you come up with, you're a performance artist now. And we have here at the Met, we have this, it's the only program like it in the world with a major, the major museum institution in our city that has a program like this. And it's basically creating through the Met and its collection, reflections on art. So it's creating art live now. So the Met is actually investing in new art. And, and I'm so honored that they asked me to be a part of this. My friend, Matt was a friend of mine. He's like, I think this, you might be right for this, come take this meeting. And I was like, okay, you know, I've never been to the Met before. And it has been an unbelievable life-saving assignment during the pandemic. It was supposed to be June of 2020. And I thought, obviously got canceled. And if, if, if I had done that concert before the pandemic, I know this sounds dramatic. I don't know how I would have made it through. It was the one creative thing that I knew sat on the other side of the nightmare that we were in. And I, when I was so angry at productivity, I couldn't be productive. I couldn't write a song to save my life. And then I just eventually wandered over and start poking away. And then like four songs later, I'm like, okay, it's coming. And then it would dry up. And I was like, it's okay. It's okay. You're learning who you are alone in the woods. Just be patient. Let yourself have a process. Walk, take a walk. You know, the show is called walk on through. And it's basically that it's like by sitting still, we're not going to find ourselves. The only way we're going to find who we are in this strange and wonderful world of fine arts and the museum is to walk on through. And maybe you'll find something that you respond to and who you are. And I'm so proud of what I've written. And it's at the moment, it's 16 original songs that I'm doing that night with, with a little arc that just shares my story of this assignment in, I call it a concert call. It's like a, a meta concert call. It's like a musical and a concert had a little baby to look and feel like a concert, but hopefully by the end of it, you'll be like, you know, this is more concert. The next step is to break it into two acts and write some scenes and really kind of tell the story of what I did.

[43:10] Alan Seales: Oh, so cool. Okay. So what's the link again? It's if you go to the Met website, the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, and just go into the search engine and put in Gavin Creel, walk on through. We're doing a six o'clock and an eight 30 on the 25th. It's on a Monday because I do my shows on Mondays because that's when my, my family is free. And we're going to, we're going to be dragging the theater community up to the Upper East Side, to the Met. There's a lot of us who haven't spent a lot of time up there. And I think I'm a good usher because I'm a self-proclaimed museum novice. I'm, I'm, if you don't feel comfortable or know the art or, you know, it's like, I mean, I'm going to be your, your art ayahuasca guide to this.

[46:16] Gavin Creel: Art-ahuasca.

[46:17] Alan Seales: Art-ahuasca. Thank you.

[46:18] Gavin Creel: We'll do art-ahuasca together.

[46:20] Alan Seales: Yes, exactly.

[46:21] Gavin Creel: Yeah. I found the website here. Yeah. So it, we'll put the link in the show notes. So check the show notes, everybody for this. Yeah. It is October 25th at 6 and 8 30 PM. And of course, go to broadwaycares.org slash spell to get more info on, on the, uh, I put a spell on you. Sanderson variant, of course. Um, all of that. And where can we find you on the socials?

[46:46] Gavin Creel: I'm not on social media. Um, I might, I might start an Instagram account at some point when I have a, somebody who will do it for me. I just don't really want to be a part of it. It makes me really, really, really anxious. Um, but I do have a website that my wonderful assistant Kayla Koosbel, a shout out to Kayla, um, keeps up for me. They're literally, she's like, um, honey, do you know you're doing this? So I'm just going to put this on the website. I was like, oh, right, right, right. I want, I'm, I'm the worst because I'm making something that I want people to come and see. I want you to come to the Met and be a part of this first step because I want you to come to off Broadway and then to Broadway. And I, I want to tour it around the world and tell these stories and talk about art and my life and my loves and just, just life in general and witness our connection. And I'm really bad at selling it. Um, but I, but I, I promise you once you're in the theater with me, I'm going to do my best to take you on a ride. And I want to say thank you to Kayla for keeping my website up to date.

[47:48] Alan Seales: I am on social media because I have to be theater underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook slash official theater podcast. Leave a rating and a review because this is a podcast. So that's what you do for podcasts. Thank you to jukebox the ghost for the intro and the outro music and Gavin, thank you. This has been such an interesting and different conversation. I have really, really enjoyed it.

[48:14] Gavin Creel: Thank you. Me too. Thanks for having me.