Gavin Creel’s path to success on Broadway began in Findlay.
From his Ohio hometown and Findlay High School there was a stop in Ann Arbor, where he earned a degree in musical theater from the University of Michigan in 1998.
By 2002 he had received the first of two Tony Award nominations.
Creel will be in Toledo Dec. 16-21, performing the lead role of Elder Price in the hit musical comedy The Book of Mormon at the Stranahan
Theater, part of the Theater League’s Broadway in Toledo series. The musical, which won nine Tony Awards, including best musical, centers on two young Mormon missionaries who are sent to find converts in a remote village in Uganda.
Creel began his professional career about 20 years ago, he said, and has impressive achievements. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for best actor in a musical earlier this year in London for his work as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon.
He was nominated for Tony Awards for best lead actor in a musical for a revival of the musical Hair in 2009 and Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002. He’s appeared in Hair and Mary Poppins in London, and La Cage Aux Folles in New York. Off-Broadway, he appeared in Bat Boy: The Musical and Mystery Plays. On television he appeared in Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime, both co-starring Julie Andrews.
He’s had a lot of experience as Elder Price — he started playing the role in the first national tour in Denver in 2012, and then left to open the London production.
“It was really an honor to open the West End company,” Creel said.
Elder Price is “extremely satisfying” to play, Creel said in a recent telephone interview. “For about seven-eighths of the play he’s very stuck in his ways. He feels like everything is perfect and ‘I’m gonna get everything I dreamed of.’ Then bam! He gets paired with this person (Elder Cunningham) who’s not quite what he envisioned,” when the two Mormon missionaries get their assignment — they are heading to Uganda, not Orlando, which was Elder Price’s dream assignment.
Nothing works out as he expected, and Elder Price fights against the tide of events that is trying to teach him something, Creel said. Price won’t let go of his dream — “This is not what I signed up for!” But then Price has a meltdown that leads to the realization that he’s missed the point of his life and his teachings, Creel added.
The musical “has a huge heart, and a huge lesson,” he said, including that “we are on this planet together, and we have to treat each other with respect and kindness.”
In addition to his onstage career, the New York-based actor has been teaching for more than 10 years, giving master classes that include a performance followed by discussion, at colleges and in New York. He may like to teach at the university level someday, he said, “but I’m not quite ready to go there yet. I love performing too much to do it full-time. Maybe someday.”
Another creative outlet is singing and songwriting. His recordings include “Goodtimenation,” “Quiet,” and “Get Out.”
Creel is excited to be close to Findlay on this tour. “Just tell Findlay to come. I want to see my hometown [in the theater].” He also is planning on a visit home. “I miss Dietsch’s chocolates, Wilson’s hamburgers, and I miss Findlay,” he said.
Contact Sue Brickey at sbrickey@theblade.com.
First Published September 18, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
