This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Charlie Murphy: Hello, my dear listeners. It's Charlie from the future in June of 2025. I was going through all these episodes and doing episode toppers to kind of help update the college landscape as best as I could. And my heart just skipped a beat going past this episode. As I'm imagining many of you know, if you've clicked on this episode and you're a musical theater fan, Gavin is no longer with us, having died in September of 2024 at 48 years old to a rare and aggressive form of cancer. I spoke about it a bit on the podcast when he passed last year, but you know, it felt odd going through and updating old episodes and just not acknowledging this fact as well. Um for any for whom this is the how they're learning the news, I'm really sorry to be the bearer.

Um for all of us, um, sorry that the Broadway world lost such an extraordinary spirit. You know, he really was the best of us as a theater maker and as a human. Um, I won't repeat here the whole story I told when he first passed in terms of like a eulogy. If you really want to hear me talking about his immediate passing at the top of Rick Edinger's episode, that was our act three of Carnegie Mellon at the time. But I'll just say now, having listened back to this episode, his warmth and humor is even more felt than it was at the time, and I thought it was notable then. Um so we love you, we miss you, Gavin. I hope you all can enjoy and get a lot out of this conversation with him.

[1:24] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping the College Audition, a podcast where we explore the landscape of the college theater world and try to demystify this daunting audition process. I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, director of MTCA, Musical Theater College Auditions. And today we've got a Creel deal of a show lined up for you. Uh Gavin Creel is on the pod today. Uh Gavin is a friend and fellow T Papper and just such an amazing human. I think you're really gonna dig how open and vulnerable he is on the pod. Of course, smart and funny and all the things you'd expect. Uh but we got into some really interesting conversations. Uh we talked about Gavin weighing his admission decision and he had to choose between Carnegie Mellon and Michigan.

Poor guy. Um, we talked about his coming out story and the advice of remembering Grace and all these kinds of conversations. Um, we talk about being an audition reader and what it was to learn from that experience. We talked about his experience with type and his songwriting journey and how it related uh to that. Uh we talked about YouTube and what it is to exist online personality versus your actual personality. Um and we play a rousing game of Creel or No Creel. Um, but before we get into the episode, Megan, I think we accidentally broke news on the pod in the game of Creel or No Creel. Is that true? You dropped a big bomb in the podcast.

[2:43] Meghan Cordier: Would you like to, you know, tell about new news from your family that is upcoming in this episode so the listeners really get the full story?

[2:52] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, they get the sneak peek. We were always gonna tell this. I think we're just finding the moment of when it was right and how and maybe it was gonna be with the official announcement of it happening. And then all of a sudden you told the news, and I was like, we haven't told the listeners. We just dropped it. Um, which is just that this is now months ago, but um, right after Soul Vi was born, um, there is uh was a live capture filming of Waitress, which I think was a closely held secret at the time and now is no longer a secret, um, or not so loosely held secret at the time and now no secret at all. Um and they decided to use a real baby, and uh the director of the show reached out to Elizabeth and was like, Hey, um, do you want this to be your baby?

The director of the show was Diane Paulus was also the director of Jagged Little Pill, so they had known each other from that, and we're working together currently. And she was like, We would love it to be Soul Vi. Um, so amazingly, my little baby girl um was on Broadway at like four weeks old, being held by Sarah Brewless, booked and blessed. And I'll never forget like the experience of like Diane at one point was like, Hey, can you go up to Sarah and tell her like how to hold a baby? I don't think she's doing it right. And I was like, I I don't know how to hold a baby yet. I'm I just I just became a dad like a second ago. Like, what am I gonna Sarah about how to hold a baby? Uh you can you help me? She's been doing eight nights a week with little prop baby.

[4:06] Charlie Murphy: With a doll, but everyone was so amazing and sweet um through the whole process. It was such a fun little weird experience, like drop in the middle of a cast in the middle of all of that they were doing. And of course, you know, Sylvan was the star of the show. She was not the best behaved baby at four weeks old, I'm gonna be honest. There was some crying. It was authentic. She was doing great until Sarah started like singing at her, and then she was like screaming back at Sarah, like wasn't sure what was happening. And we thought she was a little not appreciative enough of what was happening for her. Well, she was in for rude awakening into the family that she was born into, because that was going to happen a lot more.

It's gonna be more me than Elizabeth who sings in her faith. Let's be honest. That is just in terms of the first seven months of her life, at least that has been true. Very, very true. Well, let's get to this episode. I think we've made too many Creel um puns or plays on the word Creel. So this time, let's say in this episode, we are gavin a good time.

[5:00] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so excited to have Gavin Creel on the pod. Uh Gavin has a BFA from the University of Michigan. Uh, he's been on Broadway in roles like Thoroughly Modern Millie, which for which he got a Tony Award nomination, Hair, another Tony Award nomination, Hello, Dolly!, a Tony Award win, uh, and La Cage aux Folles, for which he got no kind of recognition. She Loves Me, The Book of Mormon, for which you got an Olivier Award. Um, Waitress, he's done stuff all over the West End on television, like American Horror Stories, also a songwriter. We love our multi-hyphenates, uh, a bunch of original albums, and is currently working on a musical piece entitled Walk On Through, based on the collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Definitely talk about that. Um, also the co-founder of Broadway Impact. So we'll talk about some of that in terms of activism in art as well. Gavin, how are you doing today? Welcome.

[5:49] Gavin Creel: I'm good. I do want to I do want to clarify one tiny thing from my bio. I did get recognition for La Cage aux Folles for my terrible ponytail. I had a ponytail in that.

[6:00] Charlie Murphy: And what award did you get for that?

[6:02] Gavin Creel: I got worst hair.

[6:03] Charlie Murphy: Worst hair?

[6:04] Gavin Creel: It was like a high school award. They went back and gave you like a superlative.

[6:07] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, exactly. It was like a Razzie or whatever they call that.

[6:10] Gavin Creel: Yeah, it's just one of those things where just like worst hair.

[6:13] Charlie Murphy: I love that.

[6:13] Gavin Creel: In the back of the yearbook, it's the people that cast offs.

[6:16] Charlie Murphy: You gave Gavin a Dundee for his work in She Loves Me.

[6:21] Gavin Creel: Um, no, uh I I of course mock, but this is some fantastic, it must be exciting. We try to cut down these bios as much as we possibly can to get right to the good, but we couldn't cut any more. There's too much juice in there.

[6:31] Gavin Creel: That's that's very kind. I'm I'm proud of my career so far, and um, I'm really excited to talk about Walk On Through. Maybe later we can get into that. But we should start at the very beginning.

[6:42] Charlie Murphy: You're saying so far like there's more. You're done, Gavin.

[6:43] Gavin Creel: Yeah, I think sometimes I do feel like I'm tapped out, but yeah.

[6:48] Charlie Murphy: That as well.

[6:49] Gavin Creel: Yeah, plenty.

[6:50] Charlie Murphy: Um, no, but I'd love to actually start. Yes, of course we'll get into to Walk On Through and and some of the exciting things that are current and and future. But if we jump back a little bit, I'd love to start like with 16, 17 year old Gavin. If you had been and maybe were a student who's kind of precocious enough to have like a mission statement for what what is your college experience gonna be? What were you hoping for from a school? You probably applied to a number of schools, and we'll talk about that.

[7:14] Gavin Creel: I did. What were you hoping to get out of it? What did you get out of it? So just I'd love to take me back a little bit to what that thought process was as you were beginning uh the process.

[7:21] Gavin Creel: Thank you. I I would I would say to you that my process was um ignorant. I didn't have I didn't have a lot of, I wasn't a theater kid growing up. I I did the my first musical was Camelot, my sophomore year, and I had two words, and it was, you know, that was it.

[7:39] Charlie Murphy: Do you remember those two words? Do you want to give them to us?

[7:41] Gavin Creel: And mine, it wasn't even a complete sentence. It's literally a story I love to tell people because the the you know, I was in a high school where they cast like everyone, no one got cut. So it was like 197,000 people behind me giggling when I would say my two lines. And I'd be like, shut up, you know. But I got a little solo at the end when they're like, I don't know, there's a dramatic end, and I was one of the people standing off to the side with copious amounts of Ben Nye makeup caked on my face, thinking, I'm in show business. This is what you do. You wear it. That's what professionals do. You cake it on. Please gotta see the smile on it. I have I have it on right now. It's a podcast, and I'm fully beat.

[8:20] Gavin Creel: No, I I um 16, 17 year old. I love I love thinking about that guy because he did not know who he was in any shape of the word. He was behaving and trying to please everybody around him, and I didn't really figure out that that's not the key to life until about two and a half weeks ago. So it's been a long journey of trying to like figure out who am I, which is what my show, Walk On Through, is about in a lot of ways. But um, as 16, 17, I gotta say, I was sitting in high school, thinking I wanted to be a movie director, reading books about George Lucas growing up in Modesto, California, and all the ways he started, being obsessed with film scores, listening to Alvin uh Alan Silvestri and Thomas Newman and John Williams and loving Danny Elfman, and I was obsessed with that kind of stuff.

[9:04] Gavin Creel: Um, the storytelling of music. Um I remember when they had CDs, period. But when they had CDs that were, I don't know if you remember this, but they were in cardboard boxes. Because you used to, when you used to go to LPs, you'd like finger through them, like r you know, cook-cooke going through trying to find the album you wanted. Well, Finder's Records on Main Street in Finlay, Ohio, where I grew up. Shout out. Transition, yeah, shout-out. Transition to our course cassette tapes, which you would still rifle through to try to find the Debbie Gibson album. Thank you, that you wanted the most out of the blue. Anyone?

[9:38] Gavin Creel: Um, but then they went to um cardboard boxes that the top half had the CD and the bottom half was just air because they needed to stand. And I would save those boxes and I would tape them to my wall. And I had like this collage of all the CDs that I'd ever bought. My mother hated me because uh I ruined the wallpaper that was underneath because we're too much to take them off and ripped down all the wallpaper. So this is the kind of this is the kind of scattered um noise that was in my brain from a very early age, not thinking about being an actor. And not necessarily music theater.

[10:07] Charlie Murphy: So it sounds like you're interested in music. You liked film. Did you know I I might want to step on stage and do music theater? What when did that come about?

[10:15] Gavin Creel: Well, my um I I did um I did Camelot my sophomore year of high school, and then I was cast as Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie, my junior year. And that sort of turned things where I was like, wow, I think I might like this. This is and if I'm honest with you, I think I was more drunk on the attention. I think I liked I was the third of three kids. I think I like showing off. It was the only way to get, you know, it's it's it when you think about it in terms of human terms. Like we're born, we we want our parents' love and affection and our their attention. And I'm the third, and they're like worn out by me and my two sisters that came before me who were superstar basketball players, and I was not.

Um, but then I just was like, oh, I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna do this over here. I think I've if I'm harsh on myself, I think it was about attention. But then I also loved the validation of you're good at this. Who doesn't love somebody looking you in the face and going, Wow, you have a really nice voice, or oh, you play the piano really well, or and you're nice.

[11:16] Gavin Creel: And theater is a place for people who don't feel like they fit in the basketball team a lot of the times, and need a place to go that people are like they're like nice weird people like I was. And I am so grateful for that. Attention and validation, the two best reasons to do anything. So it's starting off. I am ripping the band-aid off, folks. Like it's like real. I'm just I'm in a space of real, like what was it really about? Of course, I love music. I played piano since I was in second grade, and I played trumpet since sixth grade, and I was in church choirs and all that stuff growing up. But there was something about the applause and about making people happy, making them laugh, making them moving them. It's more important to me than anything.

[11:57] Gavin Creel: Moving and I talked about it maybe two episodes ago. There's a Lawrence Olivier quote where he says, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. It's like that's why I wanted to be an actor. He's like, 'cause I want someone to look at me. I want to. Okay, good. Then I don't feel so badly because Olivia validates me. Of course. That's but you know, whether it's it's community, whether it's yeah, of course, the attention. And you know, you unless you are also the star quarterback, which I guess to some people's stories, it's our chance to be. Hey, I'm I have an identity and I have a place to step out and be seen in high school in a real way.

[12:25] Gavin Creel: Can I tell a story that's not mine to tell? You can cut this out. Yes, butrea Burns, the great Andrea Burns, told me a story about how she, I think she and maybe Julia Murney, or maybe it was Julian Murney, I can't remember. They went to see um West Side Story at a high school, maybe their former high school, I can't remember. I'm telling a story so well. But there was a it was West Side Story, and it was Tony, and then right underneath Tony was Tony's friend. It was obviously not a character in West Side Story. And they were like, Tony's friend. And Tony's friend was the short, glasses, nerdy looking skinny kid who could sing like the wind. And Tony was the quarterback of the football team.

So every time Tony would get up and be like, I don't know, Riff, I don't know. And then he would back up and Tony's friend would come up and sing his inner ideas. Out of town. I it's one of my favorite stories ever. I was like, you know what? You may go to Bergerac as West Side Story, is what you're giving me right now.

[13:20] Charlie Murphy: Yes.

[13:20] Gavin Creel: Yes. You can thank Julia Murney, Andrea Burns. I credit both of them with our story. I can't remember which one it was, but oh my god, it's so funny.

[13:27] Charlie Murphy: This is so good.

[13:28] Gavin Creel: And we have a nice, I have a couple questions about type and some stuff that we're gonna get into later. Some of the ways it changed. I wonder if that were happening today, if Tony's friend might just be Tony. That there, if we have come far enough that that our CRNOs can actually be our CRNOs.

[13:41] Charlie Murphy: If I can if I can get deep, I want to believe that. I'm not certain that audiences will accept it.

[13:47] Gavin Creel: That's the thing.

[13:48] Charlie Murphy: That's what we have to change.

[13:49] Gavin Creel: That's what the work is long. It's not a it's not an overnight fix.

[13:52] Charlie Murphy: It's not, in my opinion, it's not um, unless you're gonna burn it down, which I don't want to.

[13:59] Gavin Creel: Uh uh, but uh it has to change in a million ways, and we can get into that also.

[14:03] Charlie Murphy: This entire podcast is called and we can get into that because we'll get into that more.

[14:07] Gavin Creel: We're now this is all a prelude to six more episodes that are kind of we'll never actually get into, exactly.

[14:11] Charlie Murphy: Um, but before we get it all that, just tell me a little bit. So at some point you get to a place of I know I heard I watched a different little clip where you were talking about deciding between Carnegie Mellon and Michigan, which of course you made the wrong decision, but that's fine.

[14:24] Gavin Creel: Um, how do we get to that point of now you have these two actual options and you're making it? There must at some point you said, I do want to audition for at least acting in musical theater schools to some extent. Jonathan Baker was the superstar of our theater program when I was there, and um, he was going to the University of Michigan, and I think even um, on purpose was determined not to be that puppy dog that was following the most popular, most talented, most attractive, most awesome guy in their high school to do the same thing. So I was gonna apply to Michigan anyway, but I was determined to go to Carnegie Mellon, and I ended up getting a bigger scholarship from Carnegie Mellon, and um, was grateful for that.

And I got in and I was really excited about going. And then Jonathan came back at Thanksgiving after his first six weeks at Michigan, and he said, Can I talk to you? He said, This place is really special. Don't cross it off because I'm there. And I thought that was one of the most generous, beautiful things from somebody, you know how it is in high school, when everybody with the weird, like literally Tony's friend and Tony are both competing for the same part, and you're like, Okay, you would never play the same part in the real world. Speaking of type, there is a thing called type. We have to be aware of it, we don't have to like it, but it is out there, and uh, we have trained our eyes as human beings and audiences and actors, frankly, to believe it.

It's systemic, this type thing that is gonna take time to break. But um, in high school, you're up against people who you'd never professionally compete against. And it just meant a lot to me that a competition, heavy quotes around that word, would say, Come be with me. Come see this school. And I did, and I loved visiting both of them. And then at the end of the day, I have to tell you the people, many of which who went to Carnegie Mellon and who I've met since and love. Um, some of my dearest friends are Carnegie Mellon graduates, and it's an amazing school, as is Michigan. Um, but I just I had a moment on the weekend where I was like, okay, my heart is open. Talk to me, Lord, talk to me, universe.

And I just met people on the weekend. I went to see The Most Happy Fella. Aaron Dilly was the lead, Josh Funk was The Most Happy Fella, Whitney Allen and Adam Hunter and Christy Moore. It was just this amazing cast of graduates. And I was blown away by the show. I was blown away by how friendly they were, and I just went, I'm coming here. It's so um apropos of the time of year we're having right now, because all of our seniors are now making those decisions of going, I have these good options, I'm weighing my scholarships, but then there is that moment of opening your heart and going, but now what is right? Where am I actually gonna go with this? And obviously you had two great options, you may have had more options too, but um I did.

I was Northwestern and Miami of Ohio, where my four schools, and I was lucky enough to get into all of them, and they were all amazing schools. And um, I do think it is a daunting decision to make with the perspective that I have in my life now. I can recognize it was the first adult decision that I made in my life, the first one that this is actually up to you. And I was lucky enough that my parents were able to step back enough and not try to force me into. They were like, Look, this has got to be your decision, and that's something any parents who are listening, I want to encourage you to step back. It is a lot of pressure. There's a lot of emotion. Try as much as you can to remove your opinions, your needs, and your desires, or maybe your even unquenched dreams.

Leave them out of it. This has nothing to do with you at this point. This is the opportunity to set your young person, your son or daughter or a non-binary individual to step forward and start the first major cinder block of their foundation of their life, not their business, to know how it what it is to look within in that scary moment, to turn off all the lights in your room, to lay down and listen. Will someone tell me what it is I should do? Crickets, crickets, crickets. Will someone tell me what I should do? And I say to young people when I teach, sometimes, many times, slash I think most of the time, that voice that you feel almost guilty listening to is the voice. Your gut is the one that you're like, well, I want to say this, but I don't think I should. And it's really hard to practice that. Let it be this, let this be your first major decision. I love it.

[18:42] Charlie Murphy: And you so anticipated my next question, which was just about your parents. Which it sounds like you had a very healthy relationship, other than that they were sick of you, because of course you weren't the stars that your sisters were. But they were like almost empty nesters, almost empty nesters. They're like ready to be double. Slam. Were they so they sound like they weren't stage parents? Were they help driving you to stuff and you know, uh supportive and swim meets financially or swim meets, um model UN competitions, you know, like like they were they and and yes, of course, theater, but theater was something that they were like, what is this? This is new. Okay. Um, and I will say, I would apologize to my parents a little because even now I'm always I I'm a little too controlling in my need for them to not brag about me or talk about me too much.

And that's not my business. Like if it embarrasses me, if I need them to hear me that I again now I feel like you're coming in in my space, but my parents didn't do that. And my dad said to me when I actually came out of the closet to them, which was an intense story that we must touch on. Oh, it's a big uh and a huge rite of passage for a gay person. Um, obviously, and if you haven't done it yet, you know, take your time, but I'm telling you the other side is so much freer. Um, but my dad looked at me and said, you know, I want you to know that um I was looking around church the other day and I was thinking of all the people that come up to talk to me, and the only reason they talk to me is to ask how you are and how dull my life would be if you weren't in it.

And I just it was one of the greatest things he's ever said to me. I'll never forget it. And I thought, don't let me rob them of the joy that it is to be my parent. And my parents, um, to this day stand back. Sometimes too far. I'm like, you you can tell me that was good if you want. But I I I think that's just how I was raised. That's just not how we were not as a family and as um it wasn't a lot of crazy praise in that way. It was like and and there's some there's some wounding there. You know, I I had uh achievement became my way of getting love, I think. And that's not always the greatest feeling because I'm now again trying to unpack that at forty-six years old and go, I don't have to do it to be worthy. I don't have to get louder applause or the biggest laugh. I don't have to, you know, all those things. It's it's it's a tough thing, but that's the life's work to unpack as I get older.

[21:09] Gavin Creel: Beautifully said, and and I really, I'm out of obviously the very early stages of parenthood myself, but yeah, congratulations. In the diapers and in the whatever, I'm like, I earn some of that stuff for when 30 years from now I get to brag about her. Like that's the rule. Like you, you you change the diapers, you do this deal with the sickness, you get to do some of that. You're right. You're right. Absolutely. Um, let's get to Michigan. So you ended up going there. Um, and we've had we had Erica Henningson on the pod already talking about Michigan's, and we have heard Michigan. We had Mark Madama talking about Michigan a little bit as well. So people have heard about this wondrous school, but I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience and sort of to you, what was it like being a Michigan student? What did it mean to you to be a Michigan student?

[21:44] Gavin Creel: Best first decision, best decision of my life um to go there. I I had I had at the time, I believe um Carnegie Mellon and CCM, which were well, I didn't look at CCM just because I went to the campus and it was literally buildings. I was just like, I don't want to look at these buildings. That was my decision from Michigan Carnegie Mellon or CCM. I also didn't want to live, I was it was too big of a city. I wasn't ready for that. I wanted more of a campus and grass and stuff like that. So I just was like, I know this place is amazing. I'm just gonna tap out. Um, but CCM and Carnegie Mellon at the time had cut systems, I believe. After the sophomore year, if you didn't cut the mustard, they would say, I'm sorry, we're gonna let you go.

I don't think they still have those anymore. Um, but at the time they did. And I was like the masochist in me, the punisher, the judger, was the somehow thought that going to Michigan was like the sweet school. Like well, they're not you're not gonna get cuts. So you you really want to be good, you should go somewhere where they're gonna treat you terrible and cut you. But I uh I went with my heart, and um I think what it inherently did was made me work harder because I was like, Michigan, which I loved, was like as hard as you work, we will match you. But if you don't want to work hard, peace. It's up to you how how much you want to get out of this education. So I really valued um tenacity.

I I I understood what tenacity was. I I got involved in student productions, I choreographed a student show. Um I directed my senior year instead of doing auditioning for West Side Story, the main stage. I directed Pippin at the at the student productions, which was an amazing experience. I was in, I got to do plays. We started the showcase started my freshman year, so I was able to be a part of like, you know, having input and building what the Michigan showcase when you come to the city would look like. And the best thing, the best thing about it was the people I went to school with. The training was fantastic. But but just above the amazing training um was my c um collaborators, my my uh my classmates.

So odd to think of Michigan as like the easy school. This is the safe school. I'm like, that is not so most of our students would think about going to university. No, it well, it's just I mean, I know it sounds immodest to me or overly modest. No, not immodest. Overly modest in me, or false modesty. That's what I was looking for. Come on, I'm I'm a musical theater major, I don't have grammar. Um but uh I don't know that I would have gotten in now. I think I would have been waitlisted. I think they would have been impressed with me, but I think I would have been waitlisted because I I didn't it it's it is um more competitive in in a lot of ways. There are it's it's more well-known. The internet has splashed information about these schools far and wide, including there are students from China and Indonesia and stuff in the program, which I'm so excited about, the international concept of concept uh uh component of of the school.

There are so many more people of color at our school, which is imperative moving this business forward for the for the untapped wealth of talent that's out there that doesn't often get opportunity and voice, and I'm so excited to see how Michigan is working very hard to change that. And it is not without growing pains. The school is trying to figure out ways to best do that, and it's uncomfortable at times. But I'm really encouraged by the way the school continues to grow and how they let me be a part of it still. I'm I'm back there all the time. I'm literally flying to Michigan in five days to go see Hair at the power center. Yes, yes. I was like, I'm not missing this. Um, so I'm gonna go as a former Claude Huber Bukowski.

[25:28] Charlie Murphy: So cool, though. Looking at Megan's face, and certainly in my own opinion, that was false modesty. You would not have been waitlisted at Michigan. How dare you? I mean, who knows, of course. How can we know? I mean, if you back went back in audition now, maybe, but you know back then, I think.

[25:41] Gavin Creel: Yeah, I know. My talent's through the basement now.

[25:43] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, cool.

[25:44] Gavin Creel: The decline over the hill is what we said.

[25:45] Charlie Murphy: Once this is a gentle decline.

[25:47] Gavin Creel: Careful, that's a little too close to home.

[25:48] Charlie Murphy: Keep going.

[25:49] Gavin Creel: Okay, sorry. You said we're gonna be vulnerable in this interview.

[25:52] Charlie Murphy: So let's get to the um first of our two games. This is a game that a lot of people play. It's our college flashback round. You have 60 seconds on the clock. I'm gonna ask you as many questions as we can get in in 60 seconds. Your only goal is to answer these questions quickly. If you happen to be funny and original, interesting, that's bonus points. The score to beat is 14 by I think Josh Sagara and Sarah Salzberg are both co-owners of the 14 and 60 seconds mark.

[26:18] Gavin Creel: People that I love. Well, I don't really know Josh. I love Sarah. I know Josh Sarah will, but Josh Sagara on the other two is.

[26:27] Gavin Creel: I was like, what is actually happening? This person is doing funny with heart and over the top yet totally real.

[26:36] Charlie Murphy: He is so unbelievable in that show.

[26:39] Gavin Creel: I love that show so much.

[26:40] Charlie Murphy: Right now, to best in.

[26:41] Gavin Creel: Yeah, you're you're going down, Josh.

[26:43] Charlie Murphy: Lance.

[26:46] Charlie Murphy: All right, Gavin. Are you ready to?

[26:48] Gavin Creel: 60 seconds on the clock.

[26:50] Charlie Murphy: Six, seven, eight.

[26:51] Charlie Murphy: Favorite show you did in school?

[26:53] Gavin Creel: Uh Pippin.

[26:54] Charlie Murphy: Snack that got you through college?

[26:56] Gavin Creel: Um Pizza House Chipotties.

[26:58] Charlie Murphy: Social butterfly or bookworm?

[27:00] Gavin Creel: Uh social butterfly.

[27:01] Charlie Murphy: Did you kiss anyone in your class?

[27:02] Gavin Creel: Yes.

[27:03] Charlie Murphy: Messy roommate or clean roommate?

[27:05] Gavin Creel: Borderline messy.

[27:06] Charlie Murphy: Something on your dorm room wall that you remember.

[27:08] Gavin Creel: Uh Whitney Houston poster.

[27:10] Charlie Murphy: Worst fashion choice in college.

[27:12] Gavin Creel: Every piece of clothing I ever wore.

[27:14] Charlie Murphy: Weirdest acting exercise you did in class.

[27:16] Gavin Creel: Oh, zip zapsop.

[27:18] Charlie Murphy: Screw you.

[27:18] Gavin Creel: Ever stolen from a campus shop?

[27:20] Gavin Creel: Never.

[27:21] Charlie Murphy: Ever slept through a class.

[27:22] Gavin Creel: Yes.

[27:23] Charlie Murphy: Religion.

[27:24] Gavin Creel: Um, worst college audition hiccup.

[27:26] Gavin Creel: Worst college audition hiccup, farting.

[27:30] Charlie Murphy: Um favorite local joint in your college town.

[27:32] Gavin Creel: Oh, Zingerman's Deli.

[27:33] Charlie Murphy: Song that was blasting from your dorm room at school.

[27:35] Gavin Creel: Oh, story goes on.

[27:36] Charlie Murphy: Liz Callaway.

[27:37] Gavin Creel: What did you want to be on?

[27:38] Charlie Murphy: Well, it was in Broadway when you were in school college.

[27:40] Gavin Creel: Oh, in oh, on Broadway?

[27:41] Charlie Murphy: A spoon in Beauty and the Beast.

[27:43] Gavin Creel: Do you remember your school master?

[27:46] Charlie Murphy: Oh crushed.

[27:48] Gavin Creel: Did we do?

[27:49] Charlie Murphy: I think I maybe got 10.

[27:50] Gavin Creel: He tied.

[27:51] Charlie Murphy: 14.

[27:52] Gavin Creel: Get out of town with triple 14.

[27:54] Charlie Murphy: Wait, should we have a lightning round?

[27:55] Gavin Creel: We gotta get Josh now.

[27:56] Charlie Murphy: We got the lightning round.

[27:57] Gavin Creel: Yeah, we'll have to bring it back out.

[27:58] Charlie Murphy: Yes, we'll bring Sarah, Josh, and you back on.

[28:03] Gavin Creel: Yes, those are all honest too.

[28:04] Gavin Creel: I I the farting thing was in a ballet class.

[28:06] Gavin Creel: Right.

[28:07] Gavin Creel: Sit up that was good.

[28:08] Gavin Creel: It was a one word, it was funny, and you moved on.

[28:10] Charlie Murphy: We're gonna tell more stories later.

[28:14] Gavin Creel: And I have to be honest, I was not my best.

[28:16] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, you were giving me calm energy, so I was giving you calm back.

[28:19] Gavin Creel: Josh was like thumping his chest during it, so I was like getting up.

[28:22] Charlie Murphy: I was like, I gotta go.

[28:23] Gavin Creel: He was like, I was like, oh yeah, like Megan was like, Charlie, speed it up.

[28:27] Charlie Murphy: I was like, I'm freeling.

[28:29] Gavin Creel: Set them up.

[28:30] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, it's our vibe.

[28:31] Gavin Creel: This is my Meisner.

[28:32] Charlie Murphy: Thank you.

[28:32] Gavin Creel: Yes, Ann.

[28:34] Charlie Murphy: Um, my last college question is just uh if now from the experience that you had um in school, and now also getting to have the experience of going back sometimes and and helping um the future classes.

[28:46] Gavin Creel: What's something that you've like from your education that you would say you really want to add in now, or you are adding in now for current students? So, what's something that you've learned maybe since school has happened that you now like I wish Michigan had done a little bit more of this for me, and now I'm trying to pass this on? Um that's a great question, and this is a big answer. Is and it's what I'm working on now, and I will work on till the day I transition to the next whatever phase of this existence. I just wish I hadn't been so careful and worried and fearful. I wish I had been more. I wish I'm still to this day trying to find a way to not care about the possible judgment of others, which just informs my judgment of myself.

And I think it's the thing that just stops me from taking risk. It's the thing that stops me from committing to character, to an assignment, to socializing. I wish I had come out of the closet sooner, freer, more powerfully. I just wish I'd known myself more and been more daring and not so afraid of being uncomfortable.

[30:01] Charlie Murphy: Well, if now's a good time for it, let's tell that coming out of the closet story. You said it's a long one and a good one.

[30:06] Gavin Creel: Well, it's not I don't think it's long as much as my coming out was like three phases: to myself, to my friends, and then to my family. Because after that, I could give a shit what anyone else thinks, which is a lie, because the business then was the last. Once I came out professionally, was the final thing. And I was really worried. But I had a mentor of mine, Mark Platt, who like ran Hollywood for a bunch of years and Universal Pictures, and he's produced a ton of amazing things, Wicked being one of them, Into the Woods movie, Legally Blonde. He's an incredible mentor to this day in my life. And he sat me down when I was really struggling after I had come out to my classmates. I came out to myself, came out to my classmates, and then I came out to my parents right before my first Broadway show.

I was like, they're gonna come see the show. I know they're gonna be proud of me. They're not gonna not come. My therapist who said at the time said to me, "What's the worst case scenario?" And I was like, "What that they'll just say, we're not talking about this?" No, and they would get up and leave, and they didn't. Cried a little bit, my mom cried a little bit, my dad said that amazing thing about, you know, and they said, "We love you, and this is gonna be challenging for us to understand and accept. We just worry for your safety." And I was like, I appreciate that. And then we didn't talk about it for a while, and then I watched them grow because it's something I was thinking about every day in my life.

And once I tell people who are worried about coming out to their parents or wishing their parents would move faster or quicker or whatever, I say, you wake up every day multiple times a minute thinking about this thing. When you give them the information, even if they've thought about it, it's now truth and real for them. So they're the infant, you're the parent. You gotta let them learn how to crawl and speak and screw things up and throw tantrums. And it's not, it's a process. And to be impatient with their progress is one way of doing it. I just say, remember grace. Just try to remember grace. Michael McKilroy is a great teacher and friend and mentor of mine, also, and he's the head of the program at Michigan now.

And he talks a lot about just remember grace. There isn't a clear path to anywhere. So anyway, I came out to them, and then when I decided to come out professionally, it was right before Hair. And when I was talking to Mark, we were at a hotel in New York, and he's like, "Come over, I have tea in my lobby. I'm in town for a minute." He's like, "What's going on with you?" And I was like, "I just am lost. I don't know how to be who I am, honestly, in the public sphere. I'm afraid I'm gonna get pigeonholed." It was like 2002, you know, it was a different time. People weren't, you know, Bush is now running trying to win elections based on gay marriage, right? Right now, gay marriage is something that's more popular than not, but back then it was definitely not true.

People were winning elections on the yeah. And on polarizing me, people like me. And it was okay to do it. It was like the entire Republican platform to just go, and it still is in a lot of ways. And I reject that platform and that party for that one reason alone. Anyone who hides behind Christianity or faith to oppress or obscure the rights to anyone, but especially our LGBTQIA plus community, it is not Christian. Christ would never have done it, and you're wrong. Period, full stop. Come talk to me and I will listen to you and I will tell you you are wrong. It's not Christian. But I talked to Mark and he just said, "Your happiness comes first. Your life comes first. Your career can be a close second, but you have to figure out what's going to make you happy."

And I thought this is a man who runs Hollywood, the place where you come out of the closet, your career is over at the time. And in a lot of ways, people are more free and we're making progress but there's a lot of trauma in our community and people say, "Oh you got to get on with it and get past it." I say, "Yeah and acknowledge the fact that this trauma is deep and we need to hold it carefully and gently." So that's all what I say about that.

[34:10] Charlie Murphy: Beautifully said. Okay, we're going to cue to a short break and on the back end of the break we'll get into a little bit of your career and some of these fun conversations that we're going to maybe not get to and actually just push off to the next episode but we'll see how many that we actually get to.

[34:25] Gavin Creel: Great.

[34:25] Charlie Murphy: Back in a flash. All right, we are back with Gavin Creel. So Gavin, tell me a little bit so now you've graduated from Michigan. Tell me a little bit about kind of navigating those first couple years of your career maybe up to booking Millie in terms of what was that like experiencing the business now having some cool connections maybe from this school and then how you're going to use those to achieve some of the success that you did.

[34:52] Gavin Creel: I was lucky enough to get my equity card at the Broadway summer season of the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera in Pittsburgh. I did two seasons there, my summer after my junior year and summer after my senior year. I auditioned for Cedar Point Amusement Park twice and got rejected both times. That was harsh. I love Cedar Point still. Got no hard feelings. Give me a fast pass. I think it's their loss, Gavin. I do think it's their loss. I mean, I was ready to get nodules and sing 19 shows in an hour. I was ready. I loved it. But I came to the city with my equity card. I'm gonna do the shortest version of what I met, not the emotional life stuff, because that's another podcast entirely, but we'll do professional.

I came to the city, I've auditioned, I applied for a bunch of restaurant jobs. I got into Republic Noodle Bar down in Union Square, R.I.P. is not there anymore. Got in. I trained for one day and I booked the part of a waiter with talent. And then I found out the end of my first day of training that I got a national tour of Fame, the musical. So I called them that night and I was like, I'm not coming in tomorrow for training. But then I ended up doing Fame on the road. I learned a ton and met a ton of amazing people. I just then after I came back, I had the great good fortune of auditioning for workshops and readings of new shows that were coming. And in one of those auditions, I met Jim Carnahan as a casting director.

And Jim Carnahan was responsible for the beginning of my career in a lot of ways. He gave, and one of the biggest most beneficial ways is he called my agent and said, or maybe he just called me directly. I can't remember, but he said, "Hey, you were great in the audition, it's not gonna go your way. But I want to know if you are willing to be an audition reader." And that is something that really changed my intimidation of what the business was because I was able to sit in the room and see this mysterious place of the Broadway musical audition, regional musical audition or whatever. And Jim would be like, "Hey, we got this thing. And oh, can you come in for an hour? Robert Sean Leonard is reading for this musical."

I'm like, "Dead Poet Society, Robert Sean Leonard? Yes, please." And I'm sitting there reading with him. I did readings with like Bebe Neuwirth and different superstars in our industry. That I'm just sitting there being the reader. Of course, I'm invisible, but I'm learning. I'm watching Robert Sean Leonard come in, and then I'm watching recent graduates from University of Michigan or Carnegie Mellon or CCM come in, and I go, "What did each of them do that worked? What did each of them do that didn't?" And I sort of was able to inform how to behave in the room based on what I was watching. That was invaluable. And I thanked Jim Carnahan for that. And then therefore, Jim was able to see me read a bunch of different characters and play a bunch of different things.

So then he called me in for Spring Awakening, and I auditioned for Spring Awakening into two readings of that. Which he called me in for this other reading for something else and a million things, and other casting directors would hear I had been cast in readings, and they would call me in for those. I did Curtains and Wicked and Hairspray twice, Ricket twice. Oh gosh. And these are readings that you're now not continuing with. Yes, you're doing the reading, but not continuing. I aged out of Spring Awakening, I was too old to do it when I started, but like I didn't continue with Wicked because I got Thoroughly Modern Millie. When I was doing, I was doing a reading of Mask, the musical, that Cher movie, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann wrote the score, and Gabe Barry was directing, and I was supposed to be in the ensemble.

It was, I'd done so many readings at this point that I this one I got in and I was like, I'm in the chorus. I'm not gonna read this script. I'm just gonna show up and learn it on the day, which is something I never would have done graduating college. Never. You would read the script and do your studying it. And I was just tired and probably hung over. And it's just like, all right, I think I got some ensembles sing, learn the stuff. I get there the first day. Anthony Rapp has received an offer to play one of the leads in A Beautiful Mind, the movie. We're going to ask you to play the lead now. And I was like, cool. Okay, yeah, sure, sure. We're gonna start recording right now. Let's see what we're doing.

I was making it up. Instinct. Cold read. And during that, I had my final callbacks for Thoroughly Modern Millie. So on the presentation day for Mask, I'm like screaming high C's rock style, as rock as I can be. I'm not a rock singer. And then between the two readings, I like combed my hair, put on my glasses and a tie, ran and did my final callback for Millie, came back. It was insane. Too fun.

[35:16] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, I do think it's helpful for listeners here. They got a little bit of it with Annaleigh Ashford was talking about like how many of the things that she you know did readings for, did readings for, but then wasn't continuing until Kinky Boots finally she got to actually continue with it. But it was like the tenth of that, you know, subset. And I don't think people always realize that in terms of the disappointment of how many of those it can be before you get the thing that actually whether it goes or that you get to go with it, or you know, all that.

[40:08] Gavin Creel: Yeah, it's a great point. Great point to make.

[40:08] Charlie Murphy: Let me ask you a weird question. We're gonna let's get into type, shall we?

[40:12] Gavin Creel: Please.

[40:12] Charlie Murphy: I have a couple questions kind of centered around type. And I'm gonna, to some extent from the outside, impose my idea of type on you. And I'd love to kind of hear like what your experience of first of me doing that right now, but then also sort of the experience of the business was. Because like my experience of you as a consumer of you on stage is that like you are so handsome, and I think like really conventionally handsome, and I think your voice is so beautiful, and I really, I mean this is a compliment, but like kind of conventionally beautiful tenor sound, right? And in a way that like we've talked about type on the show, and you know, I do want to talk about it as a broader topic, but especially what the experience of being Gavin Creel in the musical theater world, in that like to me, you're someone that I like some people you go, you're so talented, but I don't know what to do with you.

I'm like, you're so talented and I know what to do with you in the American musical theater canon, right? Of going almost every show has a role that I go, oh but you don't need to be Tony's friend, you know. In the I go, you could be Tony. You could be an you know, and again, it's we let's get specific about the shows, and which you know, in a professional context versus not, but certainly I think your experience or my experience of you from the outside would be that people were able to go, yep, know what to do with Gavin, know what to do with Gavin. First, I guess was that true for you? And was it does that become in some ways like limiting to you of going, but I've got so much more in me. I'm not just an ingenue, I'm not just this male leading man or whatever that well, you know, yeah, it's a great point to make, and to talk about type is not something I get to do very often because I as an actor I try not to think in type.

I try to think about what makes me unique from the inside out rather than how they're seeing me. But to be a businessman in this show business, you do need to be aware of it. I don't think you should be owned by it or your choices should be dictated by them. But to be angry that why don't they see me as Marian? I don't want to be Harold Hill. Well, you're not really a Marian type, Gavin. To understand what that means and how that can work against you or in your favor. I have to say, I think I have had it, especially as a white man, I have had it way easier than most. And I appreciate your comments on my face and my look. It's something that I the truth is, and my any good any of my close friends know this, I do not I have a dysmorphia about the way I appear, and I'm constantly trying to make peace with it and believe what I think people see because I cannot see it and I am so mean to myself.

[42:53] Charlie Murphy: Do you mind just in case someone doesn't know what dysmorphia is? Just explaining sort of what that experience is.

[42:57] Gavin Creel: It's an experience of when I look in the mirror, I do not see what you see when you look at my face. It's my body and my face are the two boldest ways of saying it. And I think a lot of us suffer from versions of hating ourselves or our looks or thinking we need to look a certain way or different to be to get a certain thing. I just have I have done and continue to do a lot of work on trying to figure out how do I make peace with the truth that you just what you just said, which was very kind, and believe it without getting arrogant or without feeling like I'm lying to myself, because I always think I need to be a little bit more beautiful or a little buffer, or a little less this, or a little more that, so that I will be able to get everything I want.

[43:48] Charlie Murphy: It's so interesting. Well, and I wonder if some of that is the limited limits in that way of the box that I do think you do fit into.

[43:54] Gavin Creel: Yes, that in some ways it becomes that fun house mirror. Then it's going, well, if I am the American standard, which I would say there were some years where people would think of you as like the leading man, leading man tenor, beautiful tenor voice, so handsome. But does that make you feel like now I have to be so incredibly handsome?

[44:10] Gavin Creel: Yeah, I think you've seen this especially with women in Hollywood where we go, well, if you're beautiful, then you're gonna get nitpicked on every little single thing because you're trying we're trying to put you into the most beautiful, the sexiest person alive. Or the character actress, and you're like, but I'm not either of those things. That's why again, I acknowledge my privilege as a white man. Like, but I also want to say, I think I have, instead of trying to live up to those expectations, I have a tendency to subvert them and I think my songwriting is an opportunity for me to go, but I want to do pop songs, and I don't, I don't want to sing legit. I don't, I'm not interested in that kind of music.

But you're good at it. And then this is where I'm at now is going, just because I'm necessarily do something well, does that make me happy? Is that what I want to be doing? And that's another thing I would say to young people, and to their parents, is if you can find that conversation earlier than I have, it's a conversation we're all gonna have to have with ourselves at some point or another. What I do, does it make me happy? What I do well, everybody is responding to. Do I make peace with it and lean into it? Or do I rebel against it and fill myself full of tension? Do I say no? I don't want to be. I don't, my first love isn't opera, let's say. Could I train really, really hard and maybe be in an opera? I probably could, but it's not my first love. So it's that's an easy example. I don't want to do that. It's not this, I don't want to tell stories in that way.

[45:45] Gavin Creel: But being a leading man in the musical theater, I sometimes I'm gonna do Into the Woods at the City Center for a couple weeks in about a oh god, we start rehearsals, and like, oh my god, I can't think about it. I'm stressing me out. It's another revival moment of a supporting part who's like the leading manish type thing. And this is like a rock star cast. I feel like I've seen it. Oh my gosh, it's Sarah Borrellis is the baker's wife. There's uh uh Heather Hedley and there's a bunch of amazing people that are in it. But uh I you know, I just think that's when I start thinking about type and how I'm perceived. And that I'm trying to let go of. Like I make decisions based on what I want to do, and whether those people sit down and go, Gavin, what are you doing with these pop songs?

You're supposed to be Cornelius Hackle. That's what you do well. See, we gave you a Tony for it. Keep doing that. I'm not here to try to keep winning Tonies. If I happen to, that'd be amazing. I want to find projects and do things that are exciting and interesting to me. I want to do something brand new that's contemporary, that's written by an incredible writer who's telling a gay leading man story. I want to play the lead in a new musical that's about a if I tell a gay story every story for the rest of my life, those are the stories I want to tell because there's not enough of them in the musical theater. People think, oh, there's so many gay people, especially gay men in musical theater. No, yes, there are.

And ask yourself why. Because safety, community, expression, freedom, community, community, community, people, allies, people who look at you and go, yes, be whoever you want to be. Let's play all the parts, let's try all the things. But when I think about stories, musical stories, or plays, certainly. But if you look at all of the plays of all the musicals ever written, we're talking 1%, if at the most, less than 1%, that are about leading characters in a gay storyline. I'm like, that's what I want to do next. I want to stand on stage and show you how uninteresting it is to be gay, or how deeply interesting it is. Whatever. It's not just about these two characters that you could play as a gay person. I don't want to love it. That's my that's my monologue for the moment. Universe, hear that. Here Gavin is putting it out there.

[48:01] Gavin Creel: If you're sitting there, maybe you're a young composer, you got a new musical that you're working on. Gavin is putting himself out there, and let it be heard.

[48:09] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Um, I do I do think I I'd love to talk about like kind of timing in this conversation. Because I mean, everything that you said about type is certainly what we teach our students, especially in the college process, that really like it is from the inside out. Is they're looking for me for you of like they want to create an interesting class of people of all kinds of kinds of different people. And it's it's not necessarily about do you fit this role or do you fit this role, or they're not casting a show as much as they're they're casting a class of people. And then I certainly think at a point of success, it is a little easier to then subvert than to walk in and say, I'm I'm gonna instantly subvert.

So I guess I'm kind of interested of like what the timing was for you of when you when you felt like okay, now I I've shown I have the Tony Award, or maybe I have the Tony Now, maybe I just played thoroughly modern million. People know me. Is that enough to start subverting? Or because I I would throw out there probably can't be that you never consider it at all, even in 2022.

[49:00] Gavin Creel: I always do, right?

[49:01] Gavin Creel: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[49:02] Gavin Creel: I you know, um, I say I I I found my songwriting when I was doing my first equity contract at Pittsburgh. I played my first song for Heather Maser. She sat on the floor next to me on at the piano bench, and she's the reason why I kept writing because she looked at me with eyes of like, oh my God, instead of, oh. And because of that, I went forward. So I thank Heather to the end of my life for that moment. But I really started, I met Robbie Roth through Kurt Deutsch, who ran Shookaboom Records and Ghost Light Records. I think he still does. Um, but he introduced me to a writer, uh Haley Lustig was also a person who brought me, brought brought Robbie to Kurt, and Kurt was like, hey, you should meet this guy.

He's Canadian, he's songwriter, he's a pop guy who wants to get into theater, and you're a theater person who wants to get into pop music. Maybe you guys can meet in the middle. And we did, and we made two records together that I'm really proud of to this day Good Time Nation and a small EP called Quiet. And I learned about songwriting. I learned about pop form and about structure, about rhyme, writing lyrics, and the challenge of writing lyrics. Not only was it a creative outlet for me that felt um in the same lane as what I did for a living, or was trying to do as a living or for a living, but it also gave me one of the greatest collaborations of my life in Robbie. And it gave me a bit of control over my subverting.

Like I was able to make music. Okay, yeah, what we just heard you sing. I turned a corner, and there you and these beautiful outfits, Marty Packladinas designed and this first class production, and Sutton Foster has been discovered. It's this exciting moment and wins the Tony Award. We want more of that. I just I'm a third of three. I don't like being told what to do. I like the attention, but I just I want to I want to be in charge of what it is, the story that I'm writing. So that's where my writing came in.

[50:56] Gavin Creel: So it seems like in some ways that you were, as you were subverting it, she telling using more fullness of yourself in that other hyphen, it then allowed you to say, okay, and I will continue to play for some period of time. That I will take this other role that also fits me in a conventional way, because look at this unconventional thing I'm doing as well.

[51:12] Gavin Creel: Yes. This this is something I'm thinking about a lot lately is both things can be true. I had a lot of binary thinking, black or white, it's gotta be this or that, either or. Um, and I'm really trying to go, I can love the musical theater, which I do, and I can hate it. I can love it and do it, and I can also not do it and love it. I there I can hold many things at once, and the thing I'm trying to allow myself is to make the choice to write music, not to make a statement as to be opposite of the thing you think I should be. That's a choice informed by fear and and and by trying to control something. I made the choice to write music because I had a Whitney Houston poster on my wall, and I loved pop music, and I was obsessed with the top 40 radio, and I love the pop forum and I love listening to going to concerts, and I wanted to find a way to blend the two.

I thought it was to leave theater altogether and try to be a pop star. I tried it. A lot of people said you're too gay, you're too old, and you're too broadway when I was 27 years old. And you know, it's a very different world now where that doesn't, thanks to the internet. I think people are, you know, there's a lot, it's it's widening that audience. But I, with the project I'm working on now that I'm really excited about, I'm using my pop sensibility in writing. I'm not writing a straight-up musical because I'm not as interested in the conventionality of musicals in that sense at the moment. I want to write, I call it a concercle, it's like a concert and a musical have a baby. It looks and breathes like a concert, but by the end, I think hopefully you will feel you saw something that was like a song cycle with an arc and a story, and you will take a journey with me.

And I'm playing myself. I'm playing Gavin Creel. And it will be staged, like so it'll be like a cabaret style. It'll be a concert stage, like less full show. It's it's gonna feel like a full, it's gonna feel like American Utopia, but with the band, like not as much of the incredible moving around. It's gonna be like a one-person show with musical, with a story. Incredible six-piece band that's on stage and projections of masterpieces of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And it's it's a really exciting thing. I'm so excited about, and we're hopefully gonna workshop it this summer. Um I can't wait to say it. I haven't heard if I got into the festival that I applied to, but fingers crossed.

[53:30] Charlie Murphy: We'll put it out there that we'll tell the listeners you did get in.

[53:31] Gavin Creel: I got in. That's true, it happened.

[53:34] Charlie Murphy: Cast in the musical that you want with a new game story, and we're gonna have this. It's all happening.

[53:39] Charlie Murphy: Um let's talk a little bit about social media. Um, I'd love to hear what your relationship certainly currently is with social media, but also a little bit um, because again, it was the first time you came onto my radar was to some extent with YouTube, with the rise of YouTube.

[53:51] Gavin Creel: And like when I was going to college, that was like such we consider YouTube social media, right? That that like I always forget that it is.

[53:56] Gavin Creel: I always just television.

[54:00] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, it's like television, but it is. I mean, people, it's it's so watched, and it's such a big part of people's lives. And and I remember having watching, especially our students at the time, having experiences with you where they would be like, Well, Gavin Creel is my favorite, he's my idol. When they've never seen me live, yeah, they never met you, but they've no, all they've seen is a lot of people.

[54:16] Gavin Creel: So many fans are like on YouTube.

[54:17] Gavin Creel: I mean, I'm your favorite. I mean, I mean I'm your biggest fan. I've never seen you on stage. And I'm like, okay, both things can be true. I'm gonna accept that, but I'm saying you need to get to the theater. You need to come to a concert. Because you probably didn't, and you didn't think I'm here to perform on YouTube. That wasn't something.

[54:30] Gavin Creel: No, nothing. I'm still not. The only time I've ever really been conscious of the cameras is this PBS special I just did at the Westport Country Playhouse that was literally made in front of a live audience, but the primary focus was filming. So I stopped in the middle to get water. I messed up and I was like, stop, stop, stop. I have to go back. Like I was like, the the prime the focus is still about the audience though, because that's that's just what I do.

[54:52] Gavin Creel: Um I'd rather be, I don't want to think about cameras and things. I want to think about the live experience. I I will say social media, I've had a really and I still have a really interesting relationship and complicated relationship too. I have a lot of opinions about it. I'm gonna be quiet on those because then the more I speak about it, it just sounds so boxy, and I'm realizing I apologize to the people I've said things that maybe have offended them in the past, but I'm still I still believe a lot of what I I believe. But I will say I was off Instagram for a long time. I got a new concert agent just recently, and she was like, look, you've got to have a presence on Instagram. And I said, I don't want to, and she said, you need to. So I had previously deleted my Instagram account. I reinstated it. I don't, you know, I don't know what the good way to do it is or whatever.

[55:37] Gavin Creel: Uh the I'm gonna tell you this. My relationship to social media, social media will be different once I have something to sell. I'm I I'm I want to spend the time I have in the day in front of a bulletin board or a piano or making index cards. I'm looking at the wall behind me right now with all these index cards about the plots for set points and song ideas and lyrics and stuff for the show. But I want to spend the time that I have either daydreaming, resting, procrastinating, um, thinking, talking to my friends, doing interactive things that are in my working on my actual personality rather than my online personality.

[56:14] Gavin Creel: I don't, just like we were saying, you can't just turn your back on type and think, well, I'm I know I'm uh six foot two and I look like Matt Boomer. I really want to play all these character roles and be a well, I'm sorry, but you look like Matt Boomer, and and they're not gonna believe that you're black, black, blank or blank. I believe Matt Boomer can be anything because I love him so much. But um, but the same thing is true that I say to myself about social media. I can't turn my back on it and say it's not happening. I tried for a very long time. I participate in it with it in the way that feels authentic and healthy to me. I just say to anybody who's worried about and stressed out about it, you're in control of it.

It's up to you. And when you feel dragged around like a cat by its tail by social media, well, I have to do it. I have to, I have to participate. This is what they say. I have to why? I just say it's you are in control of the inputs in your life. If you're scrolling all day long at everybody else's social feeds and um watching their stories and social feeds, listen, I don't think that's what you say.

[57:18] Gavin Creel: I don't know. That sounded good enough to me. It's about as much. I'm social feed, sounds right. He's an expert, my God. I have no idea. But what about from the experience of like uh um fans coming up to you or I guess I the experience of, you know, we did a Olivier quote of why do I be an actor? Look at me, look at me, look at me. All these people who have been looking at you and looking at you and look, you know, with in as you look at the YouTube, or even if it's not other social media, even if it's not Instagram, but but you know, knowing that you're you know, like Elizabeth was talking about this at the her now most viewed thing in the world was this like Sondheim concert she did over the pandemic, just because it's on YouTube and now it's been hundreds of millions of people have seen this damn concert.

Even though it's like not the most I mean, she's great in it, but it's not like that's the thing I'm proudest of, or that's the you know, but because of the power of the digital, yeah, it is so you know becomes so ubiquitous. I gotta say, I'm just gonna claim ignorance in that I don't know how to do that.

[58:12] Gavin Creel: I don't people like chasing trying to make something go viral. I don't know. I did spend some of my time when I was trying to be a pop star in my late 20s, my mid-30s, trying to figure out that the alchemy to get that thing to happen. And then I realized for myself, that's like trying to generate lightning in a bottle. Like you don't have control over so many things. And I just and I frankly don't want to spend my time learning how to do that. I'm also a I have a the luxury of having existed before a lot of this stuff. So I have a different foundation than than people who are coming up in school now and are are dealing with social media and trying to figure out what what how they exist on it.

The two things I'll say is, and I again social I don't think of YouTube as social media, even though it probably is. I'm just talking about like how we engage personally as human beings with the world on our social Instagram social media feeds like Instagram and Twitter or whatever. I just think remember mystery. There is there is real power in not telling everybody everything about your opinions, your thoughts, your needs, what you're doing, what you're wearing. I think there is a real belief that overexposure, there's no such thing as overexposure anymore. I just think what kind of artist do you want to be? Do you want to be somebody who surprises? And because it's you I I I I believe that it's harder for people to see us playing things when we know what you eat for breakfast and lunch and dinner every day, and you're how you what you think about every single thing.

[59:46] Gavin Creel: Um and the other thing I would say is just you only have 24 hours in the day. What do you want to spend it doing? Well, and I love you said you know, some moments of of I don't think you use the word laziness, but some moments of of not thinking of procrastination and of like if you eat up all that time, then you are limiting your creativity, but but necessarily. If all of your time is either doing something or imbibing something in social media, then let me tell you something though. This is where you can substitute social media for texts for me or phone calls. I am hungry for connection. So I want to say if you're on social media, you a lot of it is yeah, dopamine, whatever, but I'm trying to get dopamine from phone calls from FaceTimes.

I'm trying to get dopamine. I mean, I look at my phone so much, not at social media, but I look, did somebody text me? Did somebody call me? I I want connection. This this time, these last two years have been so unbelievably painful. I can only speak for myself, so I will say for me, I know it's been so painful for everybody. I went inward in ways I've never done before. I became individualized in ways that I'm not proud of and I'm proud of, but I don't want to be individualized because that just makes you feel like you're an island of one, and it's just it's a horrible isolation. I I understand the want because I too am picking up my phone going, did somebody text me? Oh, and then but I also know that the the devastation that I feel when there isn't a little red circle with the number in it hanging above an app.

So I feel that pain. I don't want to say I'm not better than that. I feel it. And I was gonna say it's just it's some of what you were looking for in high school for that community of going, I need that attention, I need that validation. It's we all have that's a human urge that we all want, especially as theater people.

[1:01:29] Charlie Murphy: Um, all right, let's play our second game of the day. This game is created just for you, Gavin. This is an offshoot of we did like a seven degrees of Annalie Ashford. Um this is gonna be this is called Creel or No Creel.

[1:01:34] Gavin Creel: Okay.

[1:01:43] Charlie Murphy: And the goal is I'm gonna say some things about like productions that you've done in the past, especially. And you have to determine if it's true, which would be Creel or false, which would be no Creel. Okay? So it's like a true or false situation.

[1:01:52] Gavin Creel: I love the game will be very simple. It will be very hard. I'm gonna be honest. Some of it is hard.

[1:02:05] Charlie Murphy: I love it. Makes me think. It's so much fun. Hello, Dolly, a show which garnered you a Tony Award, is based on the 1938 Thornton Wilder Farce, The Merchant of Yonkers. Creel or no Creel?

[1:02:16] Gavin Creel: No Creole.

[1:02:18] Charlie Murphy: No Creel? Tell me more.

[1:02:21] Gavin Creel: Oh, wait, no, sorry. Yes, wait, wait, it's it is based on that, right? Yes, Creel.

[1:02:25] Charlie Murphy: That's Creel, that's Creel Creel. That's a little bit of a trick because it's also then he like rewrote it as something else, but whatever.

[1:02:29] Gavin Creel: That's the original was version of Yonkers. Yeah. Creel.

[1:02:31] Charlie Murphy: This film adaptation was directed by Gene Kelly.

[1:02:36] Gavin Creel: Oh, it's a test. I have to answer it. Creel or no Creel?

[1:02:41] Gavin Creel: Um Creole.

[1:02:43] Charlie Murphy: Creel!

[1:02:43] Gavin Creel: Two for two.

[1:02:44] Charlie Murphy: Okay, we're doing great. It has been revived on Broadway seven times.

[1:02:48] Gavin Creel: No Creel.

[1:02:49] Charlie Murphy: No Creel, correct.

[1:02:50] Gavin Creel: Okay, we're three for three. We're doing great. It's gonna get harder.

[1:02:52] Charlie Murphy: Okay, good. The next story about Waitress. Waitress is a show you've done on Broadway and the West End. It's based on a 2007 movie of the same name starring Renel Zagwig Zellwigger and originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Creel or no Creel.

[1:03:06] Gavin Creel: No Creole.

[1:03:07] Charlie Murphy: And why not?

[1:03:09] Gavin Creel: Because Renee Zellweger did not star and it was Carrie Russell. It's because I stumbled on that damn name. I made a couple of things. No, you didn't. I was like, I see. That's wrong. But yeah, I got caught myself.

[1:03:18] Charlie Murphy: Okay. The following lists are all Creel names of pies in Joe's diner. Are we ready?

[1:03:25] Gavin Creel: Oh gosh, okay.

[1:03:26] Charlie Murphy: Lulu's strawberry dream pie. Red, white, and blueberry pie, big guy strawberry pie, marshmallow mermaid pie, and berry the BS pie. Creel or no creel.

[1:03:38] Gavin Creel: No creole.

[1:03:40] Charlie Murphy: Which one is false, do you think?

[1:03:42] Gavin Creel: Uh oh, I thought there were two that were false.

[1:03:44] Charlie Murphy: Okay.

[1:03:45] Gavin Creel: All Creole.

[1:03:46] Charlie Murphy: Those are all Creole.

[1:03:47] Gavin Creel: Creole names on the board for Broadway. According to the internet. Who knows if the internet's Creel or No Creel.

[1:03:52] Charlie Murphy: Oh, that are up on the up on the board above the thing. What's that one?

[1:03:59] Gavin Creel: Big guy's strawberry pie? That's the one I had to include. I was like, that sounds so fake.

[1:04:01] Charlie Murphy: I thought that was fake for sure. Lulu's strawberry pie. I didn't know. I I thought I would have thought it was Lulu's Strawberry Dream Pie, is that what it was? Lular Lulu's strawberry dream pie. Oh yeah.

[1:04:12] Gavin Creel: Okay. Screw it up. In the recent filming of the stage production of Waitress, they decided to use a Creel baby as Lulu instead of a doll.

[1:04:21] Gavin Creel: My daughter is that Creel baby.

[1:04:23] Charlie Murphy: Creel is.

[1:04:25] Gavin Creel: It is so Creel.

[1:04:26] Charlie Murphy: It's so Creel. What a weird dream. I really like four weeks old, wasn't she?

[1:04:32] Gavin Creel: Four weeks old. I hope she's like a scientist, and then like later gets the watch and be like, are you kidding me? I'm like, girl, you've been on Broadway. She's winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and they're like.

[1:04:40] Charlie Murphy: A little known fact, in the hologram production of because they'll have changed them all the holograms by that point.

[1:04:46] Gavin Creel: Yes, of course. That's what it's very advanced.

[1:04:48] Charlie Murphy: Yes. YouTube is a hologram. Thoroughly Modern Millie. Now the rest of these are all quick hitters, uh, individual shows.

[1:04:55] Gavin Creel: Okay.

[1:04:55] Charlie Murphy: Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which you received a delicious Tony Nam, won exactly six Tony Awards. Creel or no Creole.

[1:05:05] Gavin Creel: Um I think that's Creole.

[1:05:11] Charlie Murphy: It is Creole. For bonus dollars, can you name them?

[1:05:14] Gavin Creel: Best musical, best actress.

[1:05:17] Charlie Murphy: Ding.

[1:05:18] Gavin Creel: Um, best supporting actress.

[1:05:20] Charlie Murphy: Ding.

[1:05:21] Gavin Creel: Um best it did not get best book in lyrics because that was your in town. Uh um, it didn't get best score, obviously. Uh wait, I think maybe it won for lighting.

[1:05:39] Charlie Murphy: No, the other ones are all a costume, choreo, and orchestrations.

[1:05:42] Gavin Creel: Wait, fantastic costume.

[1:05:44] Charlie Murphy: Three for three.

[1:05:44] Gavin Creel: Costume, choreo, and orchestra.

[1:05:46] Charlie Murphy: Oh, yeah, Rob, orchestrations.

[1:05:47] Gavin Creel: Oh, cool.

[1:05:51] Charlie Murphy: Three extra Creole dollars there. Okay, I'll tell you. Um the Book of Mormon, for which you received an Olivier Award, recently became the highest-grossing musical of all time at 645 million dollars. Creel or no creel.

[1:06:02] Gavin Creel: That is a no-creel. The big great biggest musical of all time is the Lion King. It's made more it's the greatest, it's the greatest entertainment property in all of entertainment.

[1:06:13] Charlie Murphy: It's never 1.7 billion.

[1:06:16] Gavin Creel: Wait. Yes, you're right. No, you're 100% right. Everything you're saying is true. I'm just echoing that. That it's up to 1.7 billion worldwide.

[1:06:22] Charlie Murphy: I was told that it was the greatest property of all time, even movies.

[1:06:27] Gavin Creel: Correct. I think that could be true. I don't know. I don't know. No, because I think we would no, because those Avenger movies now are like two billion two point twelve. I have absolutely no idea. I'm just looking at Wikipedia for just for the general.

[1:06:37] Charlie Murphy: That's how I can learn. It could not be true. Who knows? But 1.7 billion, I do think it means like if you're in the cast of Lion King, you better not get scrimped on those contracts. I'm just saying 1.7 billion, they can afford to pay you a little bit extra than what you think. I and also hope that the original company is just literally buying houses and and starting foundations because they should be given 1%. If they got like 1% of 1.7 billion, oh my gosh.

[1:07:02] Gavin Creel: Hair, for which you got another Tony Nan, blah, blah, blah. Is the show to date with the most expensive wig budget in Broadway history?

[1:07:10] Gavin Creel: That is a huge no Creel. I mean, I don't know. No, that's so good. But I can before you even said the most expensive wig, I was like, nope.

[1:07:15] Charlie Murphy: No.

[1:07:20] Gavin Creel: We were there was no budget, period. Like we were making things happen.

[1:07:25] Charlie Murphy: Okay, great. I think you've like nine for ten with some bonus green dollars.

[1:07:28] Gavin Creel: Creel dogs.

[1:07:29] Charlie Murphy: Oh, yeah, right. The last one, Lakaja Falls. Again, you got no recognition except for that one word. Won six Tony Awards for the original production, including Best Direction for Arthur Lawrence, which was his only Tony award specifically for best direction. Creel or no Creole.

[1:07:47] Gavin Creel: Okay, there's so many levels of where this could go wrong. Did it win six? I'm gonna say yes. Did Arthur Lawrence direct it? I think that's a Creel. Creel? And is it the only one? I'm gonna say no Creel.

[1:08:00] Charlie Murphy: And that's the first one.

[1:08:00] Gavin Creel: Oh my gosh, that's perfect. You got it all right. What what would you know what else he might have won it for?

[1:08:06] Gavin Creel: I I mean gypsy's one of the greatest written things ever, so it's gotta be gypsy for the book.

[1:08:09] Charlie Murphy: He won it for both in both 1975 and again in 2008.

[1:08:12] Gavin Creel: Did he read he did? Oh wait, did he direct the original Gypsy?

[1:08:17] Charlie Murphy: No, he didn't. He just wrote this on Wikipedia.

[1:08:19] Gavin Creel: Oh, he did. I thought he just wrote the book, but could be. Wikipedia people, you can you can double check us if we it's very possible. We take we do not say that anything we're saying here on the game is actually true. Because you're just what Charlie came up with and wrote down. Doesn't mean that it's actually right.

[1:08:32] Charlie Murphy: Oh, please. It's your show. You can do whatever you want. You can literally say yes, let's say directly is a marshmallow cloud upon which all of us sit. Creo.

[1:08:39] Gavin Creel: I mean, in the pandemic, it's basically true. I mean, literally, it's marshmallow dreams and r unicorn farts. That's all it is. Dissipating in the breeze.

[1:08:47] Charlie Murphy: Sadly true. Tell me a little bit about um Broadway impact. I know Elizabeth mentioned specifically, maybe it was your experience with hair that made you sort of sp sp spark into activism or really sort of turn that up a notch.

[1:08:58] Gavin Creel: I will say um we were we were dealing with um some friends of mine were trying to figure out how to get involved. I was kind of stepping into my um identity as a gay man, like getting involved with the gay community in some way. And then we were inspired by and enraged by the um the inspired by the election of Barack Obama and enraged by the passage of Prop 8 um limiting the um same-sex couples to be able to be married in California. And we thought, how can those things happen on the same day? And uh we followed Barack Obama's advice example of being a community organizer. Graduated instead of going to get work at some big crazy law firm, he came back to Chicago to be a community organizer. And and and to this day, I just am amazed by that very non capitalistic um uh incredibly selfless and extremely powerful and most important thing that he did.

Uh so we just were talking and tried to figure out a way that we could organize our community, the theater community, to get behind this issue that we thought um was imperative for our world to move forward. And as it was from people like me and my friend Rory O'Malley and all my gay friends to not be second-class citizens under the law. And we thought it would take forever. We we we went to a join the impact rally right after Proposition 8 was passed, and like the like a week after. And it was downtown, it was this amazing, very inspiring thing. Tons of people showed up and all saying, hell no. And then we went to a few meetings and we watched a lot of infighting in the communities, trying to like jockey on who's gonna take the lead and what people are gonna do, and people saying, Well, they're not doing it right, we shouldn't be doing this, we shouldn't be doing this, um, and we shouldn't be speaking like this, and we should be talking to these people, and we know we shouldn't be talking to those people.

And we were like, Oh, okay, let's calm down. We're just gonna try to teach our community how to write letters to their senators and whatever. It's stuff now that is thanks to apps and social media and phone banking, and people are a lot more beautifully more engaged in that aspect. But I also just wanted to get light the fire under myself and teach myself about how I didn't, I'm not a history person, I'm not a civics person. I don't like that. My brain is like a crazen, but like geography, history, civics, all that stuff. I was not interested in those subjects in school. I liked algebra, I liked music, I liked a little bit of science, you know. You said model UN at one point they were driving you to.

[1:11:24] Gavin Creel: No, I just did it for a credit in my college application. Like I didn't know what the hell was going on.

[1:11:36] Gavin Creel: But it was it was um it was inspiring to watch, but I was terrible at Model UN. I didn't understand, I was there with all the smarties just going, okay, what do you want me to do? Just charm the people from you know Slovakia. Okay, we're we're playing Holland. I don't know, whatever. Um, but uh I kind of I kind of just thought for this moment, um, let's let's engage ourselves, and as we engage ourselves, we all thought, well, we'll engage our community. So I made a bunch of little videos, and just as I learned, I said, Hey, guess what I learned, guys? This is what I learned. And I'd tell people, and then we thought we want to make an impact, and we came up with the name probably impact, and we had some friends to donate their time to make a little logo and made some t-shirts and had a slogan, and then it ran for six years.

Our Jenny Canellos was our executive director, and we thought we would be running for 30 years. We thought she'd be sitting in that office forever. We said, We're one issue, marriage equality. We're gonna do one thing. And when we whenever we show up, you'll know, oh, Bravo Impact again, fighting for marriage equality. That's what we're gonna do. And and and and it can take on the face of Audrey McDonald and Cheyenne Jackson at a at a rally. It can take on the face of the governor or the mayor at that rally, it can take on the face of the cast of hair singing on the Capitol Steps. Um, it can take on the the face of any people sitting at a table going with a I I joined this thing, talking to their friends about I love theater, and this can organization is doing and it got passed, and it's the law of the land, and we dissolved the organization after that. We just said, Okay, we're done.

[1:13:04] Charlie Murphy: So cool. Well, in carrying that forward into like sort of where you see we we touched a little bit on this and promised maybe we would or wouldn't come back to it. Um, in terms of sort of where we are now and where you know, especially in 2022 and the what the past two years have been, like what would be the next the thing that you would start? What would be the next what where where do you feel like we need the most attention or where should we be going? I mean, I know you're of course one person, you don't have to have the one true opinion, but what do you feel like in terms of what has happened over the past couple of years and where you feel like theater is going in those questions?

[1:13:36] Gavin Creel: I think we have to make sure the gas doesn't come off of the social justice movement within the theater, that we have racial equity, um, social justice equity in in our in our industry. I think it's going to be very easy as things quote unquote come back. And the the system is deep. The system is racist. The there's no the entire musical theater art form on Broadway was founded in racism. It was founded in racism. If we can't acknowledge that, you can go back and look in Blackface and Minstrel C in that's where our art form in this country took place. It doesn't mean we're not doing that now, thankfully, but it if we can't all agree and know that, acknowledge it, because people don't want to say there's even in our industry, they want to say, look, we're this is how things are.

When you say this, if you hear yourself saying the sentence, this is how this is just how things are. Look back to why. Because just to say things how things are, I have said it, it's lazy, Gavin. That's lazy. Why just just take a second and go, okay, why are things like that? I you will find, I have found, I have found, and find again and again through inspiring people like Nicole Johnson, who runs the Harriet Tubman Effect Institute, who I've learned through the Edify education process about the systemic racism and the the presence of white supremacy culture characteristics in our industry, perfectionism, right and wrong thinking, sense of urgency. Come on, guys, we've got to get this done, we gotta get this done.

It's rooted in a culture, which is a culture characteristic, which is a belief of how things are, how things should be. And if you look at why are things a certain way, why should they be? Someone has to decide. If you look back, who always decided most often, white people, always white people, most often white men. So it's like if you just fall back on, well, this is just the way the business is. Okay, cool. The business was founded on rotten roots. Yes, we love it. Yes, it can move forward, we can change it. But if we don't acknowledge the rotten roots that it was built on, we're trying to like build houses with rotten wood. So it's like, let's let's let's just keep the gas, because keep thinking, let's keep educating ourselves.

Check out the Harriet Tubman Effect Institute, check out Nicole Johnson. She's somebody who I I've met through my friends Max Von Essen and Ryan Vasquez and Zach Prince and Corey Mock brought us all into a room with a bunch of white people and Nicole to go, we are screwed. We are not doing this correctly. What can we do? If you're white, you're out there, you are human, just as everyone else is in the people of color. This is our work to do, not theirs.

[1:16:20] Charlie Murphy: So true. Um, and I think especially we talk about keeping the gas on, it's like it is so easy coming back from a pandemic for theaters to cry poor and to cry truthfully, cry cry poor, and to say, well, we need to do this show first. This is what the season should look like first, because we need to get our subscribers back, or we need to get, you know, it's like it's so easy to sort of fall back on some of those things, uh, maybe even well-intentioned things.

[1:16:39] Gavin Creel: Yeah, in what you said, the way that it is, the way that it was. Because we need to, what's old faithful here as opposed to something new and radical?

[1:16:47] Charlie Murphy: Well said.

[1:16:48] Gavin Creel: Yeah. Um, what about let's just wrap up with, you know, if you're talking to a young artist, maybe if you want to think about young Gavin, or you you've been thinking about the young 16, 17 year old, you haven't full of ignorance, what is ignorance validation and uh attention? Yeah, exactly. Um, real healthy beginning. If you're not gonna to that young artist, and you're talking to maybe one of our students, maybe either who's just about to start the process, is is just you know is engaged in the process right now. Um, what would advise would you give to them?

[1:17:11] Gavin Creel: Joseph Campbell's quote, follow your bliss, follow your bliss. It can't steer you wrong. But to know what you want, to know to have the courage to state that bliss, to lean into that bliss, and to allow yourself the grace to change your mind. Five minutes, five days, five months, five years from now. Um, but f go for it, follow your bliss and and try to be kind kinder to yourself than you are currently being. Um because if you can be kind to yourself, it won't cost you to be kind to others. But if you're not kind to yourself and you don't like yourself and you don't uh cultivate a space, a practice of self-love, it's really easy to react, to snap, to judge, to criticize. And I do it daily.

[1:18:09] Charlie Murphy: So I'm just it's it's not something you and a half weeks ago. You said you learned it. You learned two and a half weeks ago to figure it out.

[1:18:13] Gavin Creel: I figured it out. It was just recently.

[1:18:16] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, it was. It was.

[1:18:18] Gavin Creel: Beautifully said. And uh we know we can check you out and your newly reinstated Instagram at real Gavin Creel.

[1:18:25] Charlie Murphy: Yes.

[1:18:25] Gavin Creel: Um Real has an A in it, Creel does not have an A in it.

[1:18:28] Charlie Murphy: No, um, or Gavin Creel.com. We can just check you out there as well. I also want to do a quick shout out, just like if you hear about I'll try to tell you, but if you hear anything about walk on through, my the show I'm writing, please come support it. I'm trying to make a piece of theater that I'm really proud of, and I'll talk to anyone who will listen. But I'm I a lot of the things that we talked about in this podcast today, I'm trying to touch on with the music I've written. It's all original music and lyrics and and book. I'm just I I'm really excited to share where I'm at at this point in my life and my creative journey so and please we will do whatever we can if there's any digital thing to share when there's anything digital share to blast that out also to our appreciate it to say check out this thing a friend of the pod did a show um and I can't wait to see it myself this sounds so interesting.

[1:19:14] Charlie Murphy: Gavin we so appreciate your time today. It was so great getting to chat with you.

[1:19:18] Gavin Creel: You too thanks for thanks for having me.

[1:19:25] Charlie Murphy: Well I hope you enjoyed this episode with Gavin. He's always so warm and open and I just love how he switches between like totally open raw vulnerability and then like a sharp wit. I thought we saw both of those today and it was really fun for me. We may just have to have him back on the pod at some point for one of our episodes of and we'll get into that later um which I think would be actually a really funny name for the pod um but before we do that I just want to also echo Gavin's advice about the value of being a reader um it's certainly not unique advice I imagine as a young actor it's something you've probably heard before um but I do think the value of it cannot be overstated. We talked in Tom Miller's episode it's a college episode from uh Tom Miller from Syracuse about finding that game tape mentality in your auditions um that kind of ability to dispassionately evaluate your work without getting too high or too low um being able to see the whole field for what actually happened as opposed to only replaying those experiences through the lens of your emotional state which I think is often foggy with nerves when we're in the middle of an audition um that is one of the greatest values of being a reader for me just being able to see the whole darn thing for actually what it is um getting a sense of like what the day is like for the people behind the table and the way they're weighing various decisions, often not on factors of like who is the most talented, by the way.

[1:20:42] Gavin Creel: Um, I actually find most of the language behind the table is really kind to actors too. I think that's a nice little um something that I guess I didn't, I wouldn't have known coming out of school. I think my stereotypical person behind the table maybe is a little snarky. And of course you could find a snarky casting director out there or a snarky director. But I find in general, in an audition, like where an actor might leave the room and say, oh my God, that was like the worst audition ever. I totally bombed it. You might hear that casting director be like, She's really talented. I'm just not sure she's ready yet. You know, like in general, they're the way they talk about it too, also in terms of casting, we'll get into this later.

So often it's not about who is the most talented. They they kind of assume everyone's talented. They may not think you're ready or not ready based on kind of where you are in your your progression of your career, but they're not bringing in people that they don't think are talented, they don't think could do the part potentially. Um, I also think as a reader, you get a real sense of why casting directors continually bring certain people into the room, even if they aren't booking jobs. It's like when they feel confident that someone will show up prepared and do great work in the room, even if they end up not being right for the role. The casting director now has done their job of showing a great viable option, and it gives the director multiple good diverse choices.

That's why you'll sometimes hear people say, like, your job is to get callbacks, which I think is a helpful way to think of it. It's your job is not to book the job but to get callbacks. I always think as a young actor, your job is like just keep getting called back into the room by that casting director. Sometimes that will lead to a callback. Hopefully, eventually that will lead to bookings. But if you're really doing your job and doing a great work in the room, the casting director is going to keep bringing you in because you're making them look good. They they look good to have known Charlie Murphy and that Charlie Murphy is gonna do a good job and show a viable option. I'm gonna keep trying to do that.

[1:22:18] Gavin Creel: I also think from a reading perspective, there's a lot to learn artistically too, right? Gavin mentioned you can learn from different approaches of what the actors bring in. And I also think for yourself, in doing the work of being a reader, you instantly become a better and better scene partner if you can practice that skill of like, how do I make you look good in the room? I always felt as a reader like it was my job to try to book every person who walked in the room the job. That's what I'm trying to do for you is I'm trying to book you this job. And that practice is a great way to approach a rehearsal room too. We talked earlier about what it is to be a generous actor on stage. And I think it's really helpful to start every role, even if you know there might be a few moments where you might need to grab the spotlight, but start it with generosity first.

Explore that generosity, and then you'll feel when it's your time to go, okay, now all eyes are on me. But it's a great skill to cultivate and not one that we necessarily practice a ton, you know, as we're sort of auditioning, especially when we are the ones who are the we are do have the spotlight on us when we're auditioning. And of course, the added benefit of reading, as we all know, sometimes you can make a good impression on the director or the creative team. And if they get used to listening to you do brilliant and generous work, maybe they'll want to call you in, right? You sometimes hear stories of people of them calling those actors in for a role in that show that they were reading for.

Maybe it's in another show that might be right for them. And maybe it's just establishing a relationship down the line. For what it's worth, I always think it's helpful to put that first option out of your mind if you're ever being a reader. Yes, try to make a good impression as an actor for future shows, but I always feel like you can smell it if an actor is trying to audition for a part in the show as a reader.

[1:23:51] Gavin Creel: Um, I also just want to make sure that I do validate for anyone out there who's like, of course, I know being a reader is a great idea, but how do I make that relationship, right? That it can be tougher than just shooting an email or sending a postcard if you don't already know the casting office. These are great jobs. Everyone knows it. The information's out there that it's good to be a reader, and they can be competitive jobs to get. You can absolutely reach out to that office and let them know you're interested, whether that's an email or a postcard, however, you're gonna get a contact them. And sometimes it is just as easy as that. But for many offices, they may want to know you a bit before they're gonna bring you in to read on a project because it is an important job.

Um, you notice Gavin mentioned he was brought in after an audition that he didn't book. I think that is a great time to put your name out there for them. Because if you're fresh on their mind and you did a good audition but didn't book that specific part, it's very easy for them to trust they can bring you in to do a good job as a reader. You know, it's definitely like so many things, it's a rich get richer situation where once you already have the audition, now it's a little bit easier to continue that relationship. And how do you get that first audition to get the future readings? I know that's that's difficult. Well, listen on, or to quote Gavin, we'll get into that later on future episodes.

[1:24:59] Charlie Murphy: Um, and to hear those episodes and many more coming your way, please hit that subscribe button. We'd also love ratings, we love reviews. I suggest five stars if you're currently caked in a full face of Ben Nye, and an ironic five stars if you're wearing one of the most expensive wigs in Broadway history. If you want to work with MTCA for help with your individual prep for your college edition journey, please check us out at mtcollegeauditions.com. You can also follow us on social media, follow me and Megan directly, email us at mailbag at mapping the college edition, etc. To my young artists out there mapping their journeys. If you're doing it for the attention and the validation, I see you and you are valid. We'll see you next week.