This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] The SparkFile Podcast may contain profanity and other adult content.

[0:04] Please use your discretion.

[0:09] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in in my spark file. Spark fire to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I pump it in my spark file. I jump into my sparks. Let's open up this box five.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: Yes, we're still here at T Pap on the beautiful campus of Wake Forest University. That's the Performing Arts Project. If you are wondering what, where are we again? Winston Salem. Why can't I hold that in my mind? Hey, welcome to the Spark File, your one-stop shop for creative inspiration. I'm Laura Camien.

[1:00] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file? Where do I get one? What do I file in it? Those are top-notch questions, and we've got top-notch answers.

[1:12] Laura Camien: Yes, we do. A spark file is a place where you consistently, or places, frankly, where you consistently collect all of your inspirations, all your fascinations and ideas of any kind. If you're like us, you're making stuff all the time. Sometimes that wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry. And we are here to refill it.

[1:33] Susan Blackwell: That's right. We're on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark our creativity and pique our curiosity, things that inspire us to get off our asses and make things like this podcast.

[1:44] Laura Camien: Or like your very own lobster fest.

[1:52] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:53] Susan Blackwell: Or a decorative tissue box cover that is just 100% covered in googly eyes.

[2:00] Laura Camien: Yes.

[2:01] Susan Blackwell: Yes. On today's Makersode, we're gonna talk to someone who sparks us. And that special someone is Gavin Creel.

[2:08] Laura Camien: Gabin!

[2:15] Susan Blackwell: You may know him. You may know him as the Tony Award winning Gavin Creel. We know him as the kindest, most thoughtful, delightful human being on earth.

[2:25] Laura Camien: He's okay.

[2:27] Susan Blackwell: No, that's how I feel. I shouldn't have spoken for Susan. I can't. But I think that about you.

[2:32] Laura Camien: We have old beef.

[2:34] Susan Blackwell: And I don't mean a fight. I just mean we have like a Tupperware that's filled with old beef.

[2:39] Laura Camien: That's been left out. It's delicious.

[2:42] Susan Blackwell: Delish. Um Gavin, welcome to the Spark.

[2:48] Gavin Creel: Thank you.

[2:48] Susan Blackwell: We're gonna start at the beginning.

[2:50] Laura Camien: Okay, here we go. We want to get into your backstory, but really like as it pertains to a creative, when did you start to see or feel yourself as a creative being?

[3:01] Gavin Creel: I first of all, thank you for having me on the Spark Wow. I, you know, creation is fun something I don't get to talk about that often. Or I guess who does?

[3:10] Laura Camien: God.

[3:11] Gavin Creel: We do.

[3:11] Susan Blackwell: We talk about it day and night all the time.

[3:13] Gavin Creel: Yes, you do. You talk it all down.

[3:16] Laura Camien: So where are you from?

[3:17] Gavin Creel: I grew up in the Midwest. I'm an Ohio boy.

[3:20] Laura Camien: Any Ohio.

[3:22] Gavin Creel: I forget that all the time.

[3:23] Laura Camien: As an Ohio girl, tell me where in Ohio.

[3:25] Gavin Creel: I'm in Northwest Ohio.

[3:26] Laura Camien: And I'm in Southwest.

[3:27] Gavin Creel: Yes.

[3:28] Laura Camien: Where are you?

[3:32] Gavin Creel: We're down near Dayton.

[3:33] Laura Camien: Dayton.

[3:33] Gavin Creel: Down near Dayton.

[3:34] Laura Camien: Yeah, tiny whoops for Dayton.

[3:36] Gavin Creel: And you're up by Wednesday.

[3:37] Laura Camien: I'm in Finley, Ohio, Flag City, USA, Northwest.

[3:41] Gavin Creel: Does it?

[3:42] Laura Camien: I wasn't in it.

[3:44] Gavin Creel: You didn't book.

[3:45] Laura Camien: Sorry.

[3:46] Gavin Creel: I'm missing out. Um sorry. So you grew up, you born and raised there?

[3:50] Gavin Creel: Yep. I spent 18 years in Finley, Ohio. I went to the University of Michigan School Music Theater and Dance to study musical theatre.

[3:56] Laura Camien: That's fancy.

[3:57] Gavin Creel: If you're listening and you don't know it, that's super bad. It's a great school that had amazing people, incredible faculty, and really creative opportunities.

[4:08] Susan Blackwell: When did you, so you by the time you got to that school, it sounds like you knew thought of yourself as a creative person or even an interpretive artist, maybe?

[4:16] Gavin Creel: May I go back just because you asked when did I first into my head? Um I try, it's I have a spotty memory at best. Um button. This interview is gonna be great.

[4:27] Gavin Creel: Oh no, no, it's gonna be great. I don't know if anybody else feels this way about memory, but my memory is, I'm like a dry sponge that the outside looks dry, but you when you press on it, all the water comes out. So I almost need a com, I need collaboration. I need a conversation to be able to understand and remember something.

[4:49] Gavin Creel: And that's for creating a great image, and I'm stealing it, and that's amazing. And I feel the same way. And I was just talking about this with the artistic director of the performance. Don't please don't credit me. But with Jonathan Bernstein, I said, you know, I'm about to be try to be very creative for the month of August. I have sworn off all appointments, all readings, workshops that people have asked me to do. Will you sing in a blah blah blah, or do a do do do-do-do.

[5:17] Laura Camien: You've made space.

[5:18] Gavin Creel: You've said no.

[5:19] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[5:19] Gavin Creel: Because we've talked about this a lot about you have to create the space. And I was like, okay, it's gonna be August. And I said, Jonathan, I'm terrified. Because now it's on me and I have to do it. And I have a deadline coming.

[5:30] Laura Camien: You said it.

[5:30] Gavin Creel: Yeah. And I think, you know what? And he said, why don't you just invite some singers or some creators up once a week? Come up on Thursday. You know what they're gonna do? Oh, they're gonna come over and they're gonna press your sponge.

[5:43] Laura Camien: I'm gonna get my sponge pressed.

[5:47] Gavin Creel: Sorry about that. The metaphor breaks down a bit.

[5:49] Laura Camien: Yes, it does, it does. We're gonna get back on track here. But you were saying my first, the first time I remember being creative was that I remember owning creativity was a song I wrote on the piano, and I was probably single-digits. It was called The Cat and the Mouse.

[6:08] Gavin Creel: What was the first composition? Well, the left hand was the cat and the right hand was the mouse. This is good. And they were chasing, you know, there's the chasing, and I still remember this song. And they're chasing each other, and then I had two alternate endings. One, well, if I ever play it.

[6:25] Laura Camien: Mystery of Edwin Drew.

[6:26] Gavin Creel: Did the audience? Exactly. No, I know I decided based on the audience. I decided, oh, they're getting this. Oh no, they're getting this. You know, I and this in this version, the mouse dies. And this version, the mouse lives. I'm craving a recording of that.

[6:41] Laura Camien: I'll probably record it for you and you can play it at the end as you're rolling your credits or the audible credits. Now on this podcast, thank you for Mo and Leah and Jack.

[6:52] Gavin Creel: That's right. And I'm just playing cat and knock.

[6:54] Laura Camien: Yeah, that was the first time you've got to be a little bit more. And so you were, you were a little single digits.

[6:57] Gavin Creel: Single digits. I must have been like six, seven.

[6:59] Laura Camien: Were you when you were making that? Were you like I'm fierce?

[7:00] Gavin Creel: I'm fierce.

[7:04] Laura Camien: I'm fierce.

[7:05] Gavin Creel: That cat was fierce. I wondered if you, I have don't have, haven't made an award for this yet, but there's a sense of creative satisfaction that I get when I'm actually doing, actually fanning the flames and like doing the thing. And I remember having it at a pretty young age. Like I would be like, I'm going to make a sculpture, and I've got this styrofoam ball, and I've got the styrofoam cup and these pipe cleaners, and I'm actually going to sit down. Nobody told me to do it. It wasn't a sign, but I'm actually going to make this thing. And being like, I'm making, not that it was serious, but I was just like, I'm really doing it.

[7:38] Gavin Creel: 100%.

[7:39] Laura Camien: Can I also say I remember making in seventh grade, I was in home ec and we got these little packets. You got to pick which you wanted to make, but you had to make a pillow.

[7:49] Gavin Creel: Oh yeah.

[7:50] Laura Camien: Home ec, and then you had shop class. And I'm gonna tell you, I actually preferred shop class. Being a proud gay man, I would have thought I'd been like, yes, let's make those eggs, baby. Pigs in a blanket, okay.

[8:00] Gavin Creel: Oh, shop class.

[8:01] Laura Camien: Which I did love home, and I felt at home in the kitchen. But they gave us in home ec, gave us this, okay. You can pick. And I picked a shoe, a shoe pillow. It was blue, had little red, three little red stripes in the laces, and when it got done, it looked misshapen and not shoe-like at all. But I'm gonna tell you the truth. It was a beginning, a middle, and an end. And when I finished that last stitch and broke off that thread, and I looked at it, I was like, well, you know, it doesn't really look like a shoe, but I had the what I remember to be the first birth. Well, I guess the first burst was cat and mouse, of this like, you know what I'm talking about.

[8:38] Gavin Creel: Yeah, can we make up a word for that? Whatever that like sat, I just call it at this point, I just call it creative satisfaction, or I can feel when I'm in like creative flow, but we have to make up a completely new word for that.

[8:51] Laura Camien: Yes.

[8:52] Gavin Creel: Any ideas?

[8:53] Laura Camien: Whoa, let's keep it. Let's keep the orgasm talk down, shall we? This is a family podcast, you motherfucker.

[8:57] Gavin Creel: Feeling of like there was nothing here before. And now making something where nothing before here. But can I tell you something else that I th my therapists who everyone should be in therapy if you're listening, everyone should be a therapist. It is the greatest. Having a professional who understands feelings in a way that we think as human beings that we get, no baby, we don't get feelings. They do because they studied it. AP psych, AP psych.

[9:24] Gavin Creel: But um they uh he said to me, um, and this is religious, it's gonna sound religious, but I believe this. You can call it God or you can't, or whatever. But if you do believe in science, let's say, or the big bang, or something existed, one thing, and then it exploded into an infinite number of things. But something made it explode. And it's the same spark that something happens when the sperm and the egg come together and they okay, and then that this becomes, but something happens, and then it's life. It's like it's isolation. There's a movie Lucy, which I kind of love, it's sort of isolated that into a drug form. Go see it. Scarlett Johansson.

[10:00] Gavin Creel: But he said to me, if you believe in creation, if you believe in evolution or whatever, there's something magical that we can't define that is that moment. And that is if you don't believe in science, you still can know that there's a word called God. Uh-huh. And if you don't, or if you if you if you only believe in science and you don't believe in religion, but you know the word God. So you're sitting over here and you're scientists and you go, the story of God is that they created everything. So if you know that story, or if you totally believe it, then you are God. There's no God. We are God, or we are not God. But if we create, then we feel God.

[10:43] Laura Camien: We feel God like.

[10:44] Gavin Creel: And I just, me breaking off that little piece of string. Boom, I am God. I made a pillow. That imagine the joy or the creative spark that's a good thing. So when I was shoving that styrofoam ball on that styrofoam cup.

[10:56] Laura Camien: You felt, I think that is that thing moving through you.

[11:00] Gavin Creel: I think it's a good idea. And I think it is. I think the word you're looking for is divinity or the divine.

[11:06] Laura Camien: I know, but I don't want to sound like pretentious douche.

[11:08] Gavin Creel: I know, but I do, so I'll take it.

[11:10] Laura Camien: For the red you be the douche.

[11:12] Gavin Creel: I'll be the douche for you.

[11:15] Laura Camien: I'll be your dude.

[11:17] Gavin Creel: Stop.

[11:17] Laura Camien: You know, the cool thing about these things, you can edit stuff out, and that will be a choice moment to do just.

[11:22] Gavin Creel: It's staying in stage.

[11:23] Laura Camien: Yeah. Um here's a question for you that we enjoy very much, which is do when you look at your life, not as an artist, just as a person, when you look at your life, was there an event or potentially events that you divide your life from before and after?

[11:43] Gavin Creel: Um there's one big one.

[11:48] Laura Camien: Do you feel, do you feel like you could talk about it?

[11:50] Gavin Creel: I sure can.

[11:51] Laura Camien: Okay. It was when I got dumped.

[11:53] Gavin Creel: Really?

[11:55] Laura Camien: The one before that was my grandmother's death.

[11:57] Gavin Creel: Yes.

[11:58] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um your grandmother's death was a good thing.

[12:00] Gavin Creel: My grandmother's death is the one that I want to say had the most meaning. But that breakup was rocked my socks in a way that I never imagined. I was it was 2000 when my grandmother died. And I was 22 years old, and I was in North Carolina. It was just it was in the mountains outside. I was in the Asheville hospital. So I was doing Honk the Musical, which is this musical about the ugly duckling, and it is I was doing it at the North Shore Music Theater. No lies. Lies. I was doing Fame the Musical on the national tour. And I was finishing my literally was finishing that weekend. And I got a call. We had one week left, and I got a call on the Tuesday that my grandmother was going in the hospital.

And I was like, why is she not well? She goes, I think she has pneumonia. And my aunt was was never we don't really talk that much. She was alarmed and was like, I think you need to come down here. I was like, I'm 22. This is a call you give my parents. And I somehow, I don't know, I had more maturity in that moment than I'd ever had before. And I went, okay. Was there any part of you that was like, I'm in tech? Like, or were you just like it was the it was the end of the end of my run? Sorry, sorry. But I had three days. I was gonna close on Sunday, I got a ticket to go down Sunday evening. I was 22, so I had to rent a car, which for a 22-year-old is intimidating. Because I say, are you 25 yet?

And you're like uh and 42. I said I said no, and then I said, okay, that'll be $75 a day more. And I was like, $75, that's literally all the money I have in the world. Um so I get I get down there and I have three days. I'm gonna be there Sunday, I'm gonna be there Monday, Tuesday, and I have to leave Wednesday late morning. And I get there, this is too do I just go into digital. I do I just down there and I was a kid. And when you're 22, you're actually 15. I always feel like your actual age minus seven is the way you age you actually are. I really believe that. So when I look at like 18-year-olds, I'm like, you're eighteen. Sorry, I just yelled in the mic, you're eighteen, you need to come on, focus.

I'm like, no, no, they're 11. And honestly, they're just like are you just presenting this formula as a free pass for yourself. For my own immaturity. Yeah. So I don't even know what to do. Okay, so you feel young. So I get down there and I'm very adult situation. I'm driving through the woods. I wrote this all down. I'm gonna make it into a short film series. Yeah, no doubt. Yes. Um and I get there, and this woman is my idol. Like she's she's like the greatest human being. I loved her. I had this connection with her that I did not understand when she was alive. I didn't understand until she was gone. And I I walked into the room, and my god, I haven't ever told this story before. I w I walked into the room, and I'm gonna we're gonna have to edit this out.

And she's laying on the bed, and she looks at me and she says, she says, Jim, I'm so sorry. I didn't know I thought we could talk about creation. Also, that's the impact this podcast has on people. Just abject weeping. She says, Jim, that's my grand, my grandfather and my father, and my my middle name. And she goes, um, come here. And I'm going, no, it's it's Gavin. I'm your mix noises. These are visceral response. I learned this from Joey Lamb in the third grade. And Mrs. Kidwell got really mad at me. She's like, stop that, you two. Joey Lamb is cool. So I'm trying to be like Joey Lamb. He lived by the railroad tracks, and I was just so gay. Anyway. So this story's got it all. This story has ever been.

So she says, So she says that, and then I, and then she's like, Oh, oh Gavin, are you here? Whatever. I mean, that was about like the that day was the only day she was conscious. And then I was spent I spent time. I was doing the thing where you were dipping. Ah, didn't I stop? I was telling I was a kid, but I was dipping this sponge things and putting in her mouth. And I was putting lip balm on her lips and your wedding hurt. Yes, so that she they were like, and then the doctors just said she needs to eat. Whatever she wants, we'll make it, we'll get it, we'll get it, give it to her. So I'm in that moment. I'm I'm like growing up. Fuck my breakup. This is way more intense. I I wrote songs about my breakup.

I wrote a journal entry, a pile of journal entries right after this, after she passed, and then I left the journal on the train. And I was like panicked. And then I got a laptop out, and I wrote the line and my laptop crashed, and I was like, okay, okay, got it, okay. And I didn't write it down until just before the case. Well, but this is this is actually the with her the follow-up question. You have this defining moment in your life, your grandmother's death, and the defining moment of the breakup. And the question is, how do you think those have influenced your creativity? Truth. If I am not telling the truth, it is not worth it. Yes. And I am I think I'm a pretty good actor, but I will never be able to be in a fantastic, spectacular, magnetic, unbelievable actor.

Maybe ever. I don’t know if I'm that's I don't know if that's my my greatest lane. Tony Awards might beg to differ with that. But what what will make me great is when the part and the words and and will line up with my truth with my with my absolute to my core truth. And I can't, this is maybe gonna sound like a seven-year cop-out, but I can't expect it. I can't demand that that every role I play serve me in that way. And I can't put the pressure on myself that every single time I do a role, I'm if I haven't reached that, I'm a failure. No. That's what caught that keeps me from creating. Yeah, that's yourself. But I'm thinking about the work because you are a very prolific maker. You are in addition to being a fabulous interpretive artist, you're a creative artist.

And uh do you feel like you're at your best when that truth is really present in your the things that you're making? If I can be so bold as to tell you about my next project, the thing that I'm most excited about the one the only thing I want to do, and then everything else is just buttercream icing. Yep. I have accomplished, I think everything I've wanted to accomplish. I'm afraid I'm gonna do this and then I'll die. But then it'll be a life where I'm gonna do it. Yes, yes. You're going to make this, you're going to do it. It's going to get it up out of the Gavin conduit and then the things behind it can emerge up behind it. I don't know what they are, except probably more acid reflux, but I'll just say so.

That's right. You keep drinking those peanut butter milkshakes at 11 p.m. I know. Oh, cook out, you tricky devil. Why do you torment me so? I didn't know. This was an expose. So interesting though, because one of the things we wanted to ask you is like, what is the work that you are most proud of? And it sounds like you're on the brink of that. What is it? I'm making a concercle. I'm calling it a concercle. It's I'm from the musical theater, and I've spent about 12 years also trying to be a pop writer and a and a story writer. And I've done a lot. I'm trying to blend the two into something that's sort of autobiographical and sort of fantasy. And I want it to look and breathe like something that I haven't seen before.

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel or be original. I such a tin rabbit to chase. But for me, I'm trying to find Is that a saying? Oh, like in a racetrack. Sorry, sorry. I was like, it's a for those who don't know, I'll see so fast. The tin rabbit? Yeah, the tin rabbit. It should be. But it should taste like nothing. Because the tin rabbit is what's sent out right before the greyhounds are sent out to game. And it's above the in front of the greyhounds the entire way. So the greyhounds will never catch it. So it's like a drink you order that never comes. Yeah, yeah, that never comes and doesn't satisfy you. And if you do catch it, if somehow you the dog's got the rabbit, it's tin. There's nothing to it, and they're gonna get no. So it's like it's like chasing a fossil.

I've never heard that. Yeah, my uncle taught me that. But oh no, I forgot what I was talking about. Oh the concept. Oh, every time I try to write a musical, I'm like shut down. And and and every time I tried I tried to be a pop star, quote unquote, pop star for the years. And it was just like that wasn't what so I'm trying to blend my two passions. And I don't know what I'm gonna make, but I'm I'm if this place has taught me anything, being at the performing arts project has taught me anything, it's you start self-conscious, you start feeling totally self aware, you feel that silliness is a waste of time, and then all of a sudden you start sniffing that glue and drinking that Kool-Aid, and you're like, before you know it, everyone's singing happy birthday with absolutely no tension in their bodies.

And before you know it, then you're making something that you've never made before. Yeah. And you're running around like other people outside of the case. Yes, and you're creating and then you're God. You have God in you. You don't have to believe in religion to there's something to find moving through here. You should figure out a word that is. We're gonna come up with a great word. We are uh please write to the sparkfile at gmail.com if you've already come up with it. We will not credit you. Um so you're making this concert call. I've I've had a taste of it, and I am there for it. I can't wait. Can I ask you uh what was the initial spark? What was the initial spark for the concert call? I'm gonna tell you something that's also terrifying.

Yeah, the spark, the only thing that keeps me going, because I stop and I go, What am I doing? What am I doing? This is stupid, no one wants to hear any of this. And how am I gonna sew it together? And what's the point? And will it make money? Will it be produced? All those gross business things, all that. The only thing that keeps me going is that I want to make it. That's the only thing. And and I keep asking myself, I write journal entries. Is it enough to just want to make something? Is that enough? And I want to think that it is. No, I mean I I want to know that it is, but when I sit in the center of what I'm trying to make, it's still scary. Because when I say I teach class and I say everything begins with an idea.

This thing, this thing, this thing that we're creating. Every everything was once an idea. Everything I'd like to even venture to say, God in his loneliness or her loneliness, definitely her loneliness. She was up there and she was like, I'm bored, I'm lonely. And a cell split. I want to experience me. I wanna, and now all we're doing, because we're all separate beings, we're all looking at, and now I go see Hamilton in You're Gonna Be Jealous. This, well, I wasn't. No, I was at the first night off-Broadway opening. Nobody knew what it was gonna be. Actually, I was the first King George, must you know. I sang King King in a Burger King crown. Lynn asked me to come sing in a concert at Lincoln Center, and he goes, I'm gonna have you put on a Burger King crown, you're gonna sing the song.

And I was like, This is such a cool like Beatles song. He goes, You're the first person to sing it. I think I was. I think I was the first person in public. I think you are, yeah. I'm pretty sure you were. And I came out, and then I saw and I and while I was there, I was like, I knew in that moment because the monitor guy who's doing the monitors who doesn't who does concert after cooking. Who could give a shit? Who could give two hot turds was literally like this?

[23:40] Gavin Creel: Listening to what was going on on stage.

[23:42] Susan Blackwell: Can I sidespark on this?

[23:43] Gavin Creel: Please spark on it.

[23:44] Gavin Creel: I was having a project with Tommy Kale.

[23:47] Gavin Creel: Tommy Kale, who directed Hamilton, and I were doing this project, and he just told me, like he pitched it to me.

[23:55] Gavin Creel: And I was, and I said out loud, this is going to be your legacy.

[23:59] Gavin Creel: Like I knew it, like I knew it, like I knew it.

[24:03] Gavin Creel: And it's happened while we've been here at the Performing Arts Project. There have been people that have shared sparks with us, and I'm like, I'm looking at you, Jess. There are people that have shared sparks with us that I've been like, this is you have to make it. Or don't, but it's a hell of a spark. And what it does is two things. Seeing Hamilton did two things for me. It initially made me feel, whoa, why bother? I can't I got out at intermission and I said to my friends, I was like, I don't even want to say words about this because I will sound like a cliché. Yeah, I was so blown back. I was like, did you see how they just rewound the stage? Do you see how they just went back? And I thought I was following the lead actress, you know, Renee coming through, and I realized it wasn't about her, it was about her.

When I my mind blown, and then I thought it did initially put me into fear. It put me into a place of like, why do I even I can't write a musical? A concert? What the stupid is that? And then it made me go. My therapist helped me understand. He goes, no, you finally saw something that you're like, that is what I want to. That is what I want to aspire to. Yes. And thank God he made that. And I hope he makes more, and I hope she makes more, and I hope they make more. Because the only way to really become creative is to see creation in someone else and go, I want to sniff that glue. Yes. Yes. I think anyway. Cam has a question that I love that I'm going to jump on.

[25:31] Laura Camien: Oh, do you have one?

[25:32] Gavin Creel: No, I was actually going to jump right there.

[25:34] Laura Camien: I'm gonna jump.

[25:35] Gavin Creel: You jump.

[25:36] Laura Camien: We um I love this question. Jump into the spark file. Is that the kind of jump you mean?

[25:45] Gavin Creel: Um awkward branding. I feel like you have danced around the answer to this question.

[25:50] Laura Camien: I prefer moved well around.

[25:52] Gavin Creel: Thank you. Um you've moved well around this, but um this question is what pops up for me, you know, like late at night, or when I start to do something or try something. It's just like just sort of haunts me. It taunts me. But it'll just pop up out of nowhere. And this question is, what's it all for?

[26:11] Gavin Creel: Oh and it hits me like that, like a kick in the gut. Tell me more. What do you mean by what's it all? What's it all for? This life, this making, this career, this what's it all for? What you do?

[26:27] Gavin Creel: I said this the very first year I came to TPAP. I said it in the moment with our friend Hunter Bell. We were having a brown bag lunch. He's a marvelous human, isn't it? Hunter Bell made up the song doing things means doing things. Of course he did. Sure. Of course he did. Yeah. We were having a brown bag lunch in the cafeteria, and I was sitting and a student asked me that question.

[26:51] Laura Camien: Really?

[26:52] Gavin Creel: Yeah. Wow. And I got quiet and I had not thought about it much ever. And then I looked at them and I said, I think it's about two things, and only two things. One, we need something to do. Yes.

[27:07] Gavin Creel: And I would even I would even enhance it slightly. We gotta have something to do. And I would enhance that just to say, something that we love. We gotta find something. If we're privileged. If we're privileged. But we gotta have something to do. Even if we don't love it, we need something to do.

[27:21] Laura Camien: Couldn't agree more.

[27:22] Gavin Creel: And the second is we want someone to pay attention to it and to us. I think everything else. Leave love, trust, all that stuff, all the big those are my big ticket items, trust being first, then love. But like, I think I just want something to do. And I want to love doing it. So now I'm I'm I'm a luxury of my forties. We talked about this in class once, where I'm like, I'm in my forties now. I get the right for it to be something that I love doing. In your 20s, I'm in my you just need to do it. Yeah, I'm in my 30s to hunt for it. As I age, as we age, the distinctions about um we just become so much more selective because we want it to be like your concert call in the center of the heart of the meat of our wheelhouse, of our loves, of our passions, and everything else sort of burns off.

[28:10] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[28:10] Gavin Creel: And it's sort of like if you've lived long enough and you've gone to therapy and done the work, you're privileged as we are. Like it. I'm the most privileged person in the planet. Anyone more privileged, come and find me. All these conversations are so goddamn privileged. It's and uh but but if you so here we are, and I'm like, um, we want to make work we love with people that we love. But I I want to reiterate, you don't get that in your 20s. That is not your right. You don't get to say, well, I don't, you know, just work. There's there's that don't let that creep in. In your 30s, you get to go, I deserve respect now. So now I'm going on the hunt. Get that magnifying glass out. Oh, maybe there was a little spark of that, spark of that.

In your 40s, you get to go, that's what I want to do. In your 50s, you get to like reap the benefits in your 60s, you get somebody else do it. Okay, now you now you do it. I'm just gonna go chill. If I'm lucky enough to live that long.

[29:00] Laura Camien: Two questions. Is there anything that you're such a why you're so fun and you're so funny, and you're just top notch, but you're you're a wise owl. Is there anything any little piece of wisdom that you feel like you want to make sure is recorded for posterity forever and ever?

[29:18] Gavin Creel: Can it be someone else's?

[29:19] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[29:20] Gavin Creel: I'm just gonna give it I heard it from it's it's somebody Bruce Keisling, who was once the conductor of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He was bringing it all down to North Carolina. Right? But Bruce Giesling was uh maybe a junior or a senior when I was a freshman at Michigan, and very early, I remember it was the fall still, I'd just gotten there, and I must have been being self-righteous as I was and still can be, and I try not to be, but about something I know as an eighteen year old. I know this. And and he said to me I was saying something about feeling badly about somebody else who looked a lot like me, or why didn't I get this or whatever? And he said, Gavin, other people's successes are not your failures.

And it dropped into me then, and I've carried with it, and I have to practice it again and again and again and again. Lynn Manuel Miranda's successes are not your failures. And if you metabolize it correctly, it becomes your a little piece of rocket fuel for you. And a and a and a source of inspiration. I'm just going to do that. I can either decide to be bitter about it and get angry that why didn't I make that or why didn't I get cast? Or I can look at the other side and go, hey, they got cast. That must mean I could too.

[30:28] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[30:28] Gavin Creel: And it's literally, you can say I'm a Hallmark card. You can say, oh, he's Midwestern, wholesome apple pie. Like a Pollyanna point of view. I've been called Pollyanna to my face. Like you're so Pollyanna. You're such a like a and I and I'm like, I used to get so mad about that. I'm like, cool. You know what you do, just punch him in the nose. I know. I want to done that'll learn him. But I got I'm gonna tell you, like, I'm gonna go, okay, have fun with that side of the coin. Yeah, because I'm gonna tell you it's a lot lighter on my end.

[30:57] Laura Camien: Yeah, I agree with that.

[30:59] Gavin Creel: Also, and isn't it going back to your truth? You know, your truth is that you are a positive-minded person in your life.

[31:06] Gavin Creel: I try to be. Yeah. And you know what I need to work on? This is my fault. I need to not force my positivity onto people who are having negativity.

[31:13] Laura Camien: That's right.

[31:14] Gavin Creel: Necessarily. And that I mean that's the terrible way of saying it. What I'm learning to do now as a 43-year-old man, and you're expert at this, is open these and shut them. Open your ears and shut up. But really, what are we talking about? I'm talking about it.

[31:31] Laura Camien: No, no, I think you're great.

[31:33] Gavin Creel: But but nonstop. Yeah, so so I do. But but it's I'm trying to learn. My boyfriend taught me this phrase, tell me more. And it was one of the first things that made me fell fall. It made me fall in love with him. Oh, I don't even know if he knows it's Brene Brown. Um who's uh Larry Terry Gross? Yeah, said the best thing you can say to another human being is tell me about yourself. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about yourself. Yeah. And then listen and don't come back with um, oh that oh cool, yeah. I went to that camp once. I love that campaign. Which is a beautiful impulse to connect. Which is my impulse is I want to carry a conversation. Yeah, but I need to let their conversation be the one that drives. And that is what acting is really all about. It's like, tell me more. And then they say something back and I go, oh, tell me more. You know, I don't know. I like it.

[32:19] Laura Camien: Finally, what is sparking you these days? Right. What's sparking you?

[32:24] Gavin Creel: Um extra peanut butter milkshake from cookout. Woo! Nice. Extra peanut butter. That I mean that that sucks. I suck that in. But what is it sparking in you, Gavin?

[32:39] Gavin Creel: It's it you know, yeah, you're right. The extra peanut butter milkshake. You know what that was? Permission. It's sparking permission. And in this concircle that I'm gonna write, it's called Loud Knight N-I-T-E. Yeah. It is that peanut butter suck. I say practice tiny victories would be my own, my own advice to anyone. You can't expect to walk into onto a Broadway stage and just be fierce. You have to and and or just have the confidence or know what you're doing. You have to have the ability to have practiced these tiny victories along the way. And oh, that feels good. Why does that feel good? Because I shouldn't be eating that milkshake. And I gave myself permission to just have a lot of things.

This is gonna give me the shits. It gave me the shits the next day, people. But a little little celebration of permission. I'm gonna tell you. Oh God, now it's getting gross. But I'm gonna tell you I enjoyed giving myself permission. I enjoyed allowing myself to say yes to myself in a way that when I get down and I'm at the piano and I can't make this song and I don't know what I'm doing, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna leave it, and I'm gonna go have a bowl of grape nuts because I love grape nuts. And then I'm gonna sit back down or I'm gonna go for a walk. You have to practice tiny victories of joy. You can't just expect to have it. Now I'm joyful. You know what I mean?

[34:00] Laura Camien: I love it.

[34:00] Gavin Creel: Yeah. Thank you so much.

[34:01] Laura Camien: Oh, I love you guys. Thanks for having me. I don't want this to end.

[34:03] Gavin Creel: Neither do I, but we're hungry.

[34:04] Laura Camien: I know, we gotta go eat lunch.

[34:06] Gavin Creel: But we do, we love you. Thank you for saying singing our theme song. And we also want to thank the Performing Arts Project, Jonathan Bernstein, Kim Slade, Juliet Gray, the entire faculty staff, and student body. And special thanks to our T Pap Sparkfile team, aka R Sparklers. That's Ian Axness, Leah Hohauser, Jack Demelio, Mo Ammelbert, Michaela Lillybridge, and Colin Hodgkin. Give them a round of applause.

[34:33] Laura Camien: Yes. So that is it.

[34:36] Gavin Creel: So that's it. We hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, if you've uh got taken a spark and fan it into a creative flame and you'd like to share it, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website. And be sure to subscribe to this delicious bonbon wherever you get your podcast bonbons. Subscribe, rate, review. If you like this podcast, share it with people you love. If you don't like it, share it with people you hate.

[35:05] Gavin Creel: If something tickled your fancy or got your creative juices flowing, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You gotta write it, you gotta recite it, you gotta frick a see it, you gotta go on and be it. Just take it.

[35:39] Gavin Creel: Could be something that I wanna take or how I wanna be. I pump it in my spark five. Spark fire. I jump into my spark fire. Let's open up the spark fire.