April 12

Gavin Creel

Openly gay actor Gavin Creel is set to play the lead role of Elder Kevin Price in the national tour of the musical The Book of Mormon. The tour will launch in Denver (August 14-September 2, already completely sold out) and will play in 16 other cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Des Moines, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Buffalo and Cleveland.

Gavin (b. April 18, 1976) is an Ohio-born activist, actor, singer and song writer who is also one of the three founders of Broadway Impact, an organization fighting for equality and the LBGT community. He came out publicly in a 2009 interview with Brandon Voss in Advocate magazine. As well, he has three solo vocal albums to his credit – the third, titled Get Out, was released last month on March 20, 2012.

He was recently in a production of the musical Hair on both Broadway (2009) and London’s West End (2010). Creel earned Tony Award nominations for Hair and Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002). He has also appeared on Broadway in La Cage Aux Folles (2004) and in the West End production of Mary Poppins. He’s come a long way since his first stage appearance in which he was a high school sophomore cast as Sir Sagamore in Camelot; the part had a grand total of two speaking words: “And mine.”

Gavin Creel wrote and performed this call to action song,  Noise – an Anthem for Equality: