EDGE Interview: With 'Walk on Through,' Gavin Creel Is Queerly Proud and Defiant

Tony-winning Broadway sensation Gavin Creel has created a highly personal, thought-provoking piece of musical art with his exciting new show "Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice," currently world premiering at MCC Theater (through January 7, 2024). Tickets and more info at mcctheater.org

In the show's opening number, Creel confesses he lived in New York City for 20 years before visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But on a commission from the museum to create a piece, Creel spent many hours wandering its halls to incorporate his feelings about the relationship between the viewer and art. The result is a fascinating meditation on life, love and art, with a distinctly queer voice that incorporates 16 songs Creel composed. In addition to Creel, the show features Ryan Vasquez, Sasha Allen, and band members Madeline Benson (the show's music director), Chris Peters, Scott Wasserman and Corey Rawls.

The Broadway vet's work is very specific to his own life as an artist, a gay man, and a sexual being. He asks questions about love, attraction, art appreciation and spirituality – which is what makes the show so universal and entertaining as well as cathartic, not just for the actor/writer/singer, but for the audience.

The production, keenly directed by Linda Goodrich, is a tour de force for Creel, who made his Broadway debut in 2002 as the swoon-worthy Jimmy to Sutton Foster's wacky titular character in "Thoroughly Modern Mille," and received his first Tony nomination. He then co-starred in Stephen Sondheim's troubled "Bounce" at the Kennedy Center in 2003. Two major Broadway revivals followed: "La Cage aux Folles" (2004) and "Hair" (2009). The latter garnered him a second Tony nod.

The out Creel originated the role of Elder Price in "Book of Mormon" on the West End and received an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2014 and then joined the Broadway cast in 2015 (Note: he was in the first National tour of the show in 2012). Creel then appeared in the 2016 "She Loves Me" revival, opposite Laura Benanti and Jane Krakowski.

2017 brought Bette Midler to Broadway in the celebrated production of "Hello, Dolly!" Creel was a delight as Cornelius Hackl, making the character his own, and was finally awarded with a Tony.

His most recent Broadway endeavor was the spectacular 2022 revival of the Sondheim/Lapine classic "Into the Woods," where he played The Wolf and Cinderella's Prince. He also starred in the U.S. National Tour this past year – Agony to anyone who missed it.

The multi-faceted artist has been featured on the big and small screens and is currently writing songs for a brand-new musical.

EDGE had the pleasure of chatting with Creel about the new show and his past work.

EDGE: Amazing show. It's super personal. It's you bare, vulnerable–pouring out your heart and soul. How does it feel to be presenting it in front of an audience?

Gavin Creel: That makes me want to cry. Like hearing you say that makes me emotional just because I forget that sometimes, doing it. It's so normalized to me about what I'm singing about and saying. We've been working on it with this incredible team... And I'm now just starting to present it and having you say that to me reminds me of what I hoped for it to be–real, authentic vulnerable, so that people could hopefully hop on my back and go, I know what it's like to feel like I don't belong in a place or I don't understand art, or I don't understand where I'm supposed to be in the world. Or everybody thinks they know me, because they've seen me in a bunch of shows...but maybe they don't know the whole story. I'm really moved that you felt that.

EDGE: I very much did. Audiences nowadays leap to their feet, just to prove to themselves that they spent all of this money and it was worth it, but the love (I felt) coming from the audience the night I saw it was real.

Gavin Creel: It's amazing... Our show, even though it's intimate, feels quite large... I'm really proud of the collaboration on the whole thing. And the love that we get from the audience at the end is such a testament to that. I'm proud of what I've written. I'm proud of what we've made – but I think it's more testament to what the audience needs.

I was listening to this Rick Rubin (podcast) the other day... he was saying how when you make art, (that) if you're making it for somebody other than you and what you need to say, you're off course. And I think a lot of commercial theater, because it costs so stinking much and because the tickets are so expensive... it better be good. (The producers are) trying to figure out what people want and trying to make theater that they think people will respond – what will ultimately make money, because it's so expensive... Rick Rubin says that's the wrong order. You got to make art. So, I was scared that our piece wouldn't satisfy that itch or that need... I'm appreciative of the audience's response so far, being so verbose and enthusiastic. But I think that has more to do with what they're going through. You know, they happen to hop on my back and take a ride. And they're like, I know that feeling.

EDGE: That relatability. I really do believe it's the specificity that makes it universal.

Gavin Creel: Yes. That's the number one thing in acting class. If you want to be a great actor, you really want to reach an audience, even though that isn't ultimately our aim, even though we know without an audience we have no job – which was laid bare in the pandemic, like, literally everything went away – but that's the one thing we learned in class, when you're making choices as an actor – exactly that – get specific...the more specific you are, the more universal it becomes, for sure.

EDGE: Also, there's this idea in the show, and you touched a little bit on it earlier of perception versus reality, not just with the painting choices, but how people might perceive the artist and what might be going on with you. And then what you're really all about.

Gavin Creel: Yes, that's so astute. Thank you for saying that... I've been lucky enough to be on Broadway eight times, in revivals and replacements and some new shows...that is part of who I am... I felt self-conscious about (showing) my own story, because with everything that's going on in the world, and the hurt and the pain, do people want to really sit in a theater with a guy that looks like me with my privilege and my opportunity...Is that going to be something that people will resonate with? And I think like you said, it's an opportunity for me to say, I hear you. But, also, there's a lot of stuff going on in here. I had a lot of pain and sadness and loneliness and heartbreak...

It all started with me wanting to write a piece. I've always wanted to, but I've been too chickenshit to do it. And this lit a fire under my butt to go, you have an assignment now give it a go and see what you come up with... And what kept coming up is, are you a fraud? Should you be here?... Do you like being an actor? Do you want to take these jobs? Are you happy? What is happiness? What is art?...

I'm writing another piece right now, very early days, but I think I'm gonna explore a lot of these same things. I want to explore queerness. I want to explore what it is to feel othered. I want to explore sex more. There's a really overt song in the show called, "Hands on You," that explores all the statues in the museum that I want to have sex with. But it's not really about that... it's about sexual shame and taking ownership of the sexual shame I've had my whole life about sex itself about being homosexual and living a queer lifestyle. That sounds like it's a choice, it's not obviously, but deciding to live my truth, deciding to face love, or lack of love or unrequited love – in honesty. My hope is I'll get really specific. And I'll try.

EDGE: I want to go a bit deeper here because I respect your daring in putting the queer part of your story out there, front and center, the way you do. Even today.

Gavin Creel: Thank you for saying that. It's hard to be gay in 2023. Period. Anybody who says differently isn't living a gay life.

EDGE: Or is living in their own little bubble.

Gavin Creel: Yes. And I understand why they live in a bubble, because it's really scary to walk around in the world at large in your truth... I had an investor in the show, their last question to me was, 'I just want to ask, the gay part of it, are you nervous about that at all?' And I was like, 'wow, not until you brought that up, was I.' But the truth is, they had a good point. Because commercial theater needs to make money. And a lot of people don't want to actually sit with a queer story. I'm just here to tell you that as long as I'm writing stories they're going to be queer. Because there are not a lot of people who are out here, putting us front and center. They're just not. And there's so many of us writing in the theater. I think we're gripped by the commercialism and capitalism of it all. We have to write something that will make money. Why?...

It's hard to be queer in 2023 because it's always talked about. It's always an issue whereas you don't talk about what it's like being straight out there. As long as I'm alive, that is my cross to bear because a generation or two in front of me, they're all dead. What if my cross to bear isn't to die, it's to take my PrEP, and to have my sex and to talk about judgment and to talk about homophobia in my own musical way. Talking about sexual shame and putting it through the lens of, everybody who goes to the museum is looking at those penises and boobs and butts? And we're all trying to look away. What if my work is to just stand on stage and go, we're all looking at it... You're all thinking about sex, just like everybody else, whether it's about the fact that you're not getting it, the fact that you can't get enough, whether you think it's disgusting, or beautiful or whatever. We're all thinking about it. So, let's just fucking talk about it.

EDGE: I want to discuss "Hands on You," because it's such an honest and sexy song. I applaud you because gay men are still not allowed to be lustful. That still rubs people the wrong way.

Gavin Creel: I have a line in the song, "Call me mad, call me sick, call me pervert, or depraved. You may think I'm lost in lust, but baby in his arms I'll be saved." I'm pointing to a statue and I'm laughing at it, but the truth is, I am saved in my partners, my lovers, my boyfriends, my husband's, OUR husband's arms. I'm saved in my own arms, his arms are my own now. I'm learning to embrace and look inward. The great crime of homophobia is that you reduce us down to just being sexually starved creatures of lust. You better fucking believe I am! But so are you...

The great lie that is perpetuated that we are depraved or lust-filled objects that only think about sex – you better believe I think about sex all the time, you better believe I love having it. But the truth is, that's just a part of me. You out there, you religious fanatics, or you right wing(ers) – people who are gripped by the puritanical narrative that's put out about the queer community, you reduce me to being a person who's just about one thing. I am standing on the stage to remind you that you put me here. You put the shame in me... So, when I say what I say and I'm reduced, that's just another way of silencing me. That's homophobia. That's why you and I have to stand up and write about queerness.

EDGE: I want to ask about being gay at the beginning of your career and how you navigated that and where you are now with it?

Gavin Creel: It was a different time was 2000, 2004, which is basically the late '90s, basically still dealing with the AIDS epidemic in a different way... And who it was to be gay that time, don't ask, don't tell, and no marriage equality – at the beginning of my career. I was very aware of the fact that – the decision was I can either live in the closet and have a career, or I can come out of the closet and not have a career. That was the way I understood it. And I remember being really depressed about it all.

Mark Platt who was a mentor and a good friend, (producer of "Wicked" and "Legally Blonde"). We had a meeting and I shared with him that I was gay. And he was like, your happiness in your life has to come first. And I thought, somebody this influential and powerful in the business saying to me, you gotta live your truth first. And then the career can come a close second, if you want, But if you're not happy, you're not going to make great art. That was very impactful to me. And what I pass along now. Your life and your own happiness is most important and, having come out of the closet, the freedom I feel not having any secrets from the world. Now, has that affect the number of parts that I get...? Yeah. Because the world is homophobic. But also, I don't want to play those parts if people are going to be unable to suspend disbelief. My belief is, if I never play a straight character again, that's fine with me...

Being gay or not being gay is just one part. But for some reason, when you're gay, then it just all becomes about your being gay... There's an infinite number of stories that can be told about me as a gay man, that have nothing to do with me being gay, or where that's not the central focus. So, bring it on, let me never have to code-switch or shape-shift to make you believe that I'm straight.

EDGE: Let's talk Sondheim. You're coming off of this Mount Rushmore production of "Into the Woods," and there's some "Sunday in the Park with George" in "Walk on Through."

Gavin Creel: I directly reference it in (the song) "Color," have a little "Putting It Together" in there... I reference the piece in a line where I say, 'I look at paintings and I think what a wonderful use of light and order. Design. Tension. Balance. harmony, oh Christ!' There's no way to do a piece about art in the musical theater and not wink to the master who delivered it to us first. But I wasn't trying to replicate. The only similarity to me is that I love him. I'm in the musical theater. And I love that piece.

EDGE: And you were involved in "Bounce."

Gavin Creel: I was. I was in the room with him, listening to him talk and telling me how to sing certain songs and what to think about. And getting notes from him. And it was just magic – true magic to have known him. Taking a walk with him back to the Watergate Hotel and talking about movie musicals and why they won't succeed. And that "Sweeney Todd" will never get made in the movie. (laughs) It really is the greatest feather in my cap to have known him and worked with him.

"Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice" continues through January 7, 2024 at the Robert W. Wilson
MCC Theater Space, 511 W 52 Street, NY, NY 10019. For more information, follow this link.