'We Lost Our Prince,' Theater Says After Gavin Creel Dies

Gavin Creel, a Broadway veteran who won a Tony Award for Hello, Dolly! and nominations for Hair and Thoroughly Modern Millie, died Monday of a rare and aggressive form of cancer. He was 48. Publicist Matt Polk said Creel died at his home in Manhattan of metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, the AP reports. People reports that Creel received the diagnosis in July.

• Creel performed the role of Dr. Pomatter in Sara Bareilles' musical Waitress on Broadway in 2019 and on the West End in 2020. He won an Olivier Award for The Book of Mormon.
• He played Steven Kodaly in the 2016 production of She Loves Me at Studio 54. The following season, Creel was tapped for the role of Cornelius Hackl, opposite Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce, in the smash 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly! directed by Jerry Zaks.

• Creel also played the singing waiter Bill in the films Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime alongside Julie Andrews. In 2021, he was cast in Ryan Murphy's miniseries American Horror Stories opposite Matt Bomer. His 2022 solo concert was filmed for the premiere episode of PBS' Stars Onstage at Westport Country Playhouse.
• In a documentary released in May, Creel, who grew up in Findlay, Ohio, told filmmaker Jonathan Theodore Baker that he was "bit by the bug" of musical theater after landing a role in a high school production of Camelot, People reports. "The show was fun, the music was great, but it was about the people I was with," he said. "We were all in a common, passionate goal to tell a story. I wanted that for a living. I wanted to be a part of that for my life."

• Creel, who is survived by partner Alex Temple Ward, was a longstanding supporter of causes including gay rights. The New York Times reports that in 2009 he persuaded the producers of Hair to call off a performance so cast members could join a march in Washington.
• Deadline reports that one of the many tributes to Creel on Monday came from Almost Famous star Casey Likes. He said he was "in a very rough place as that show was closing," and words of advice from Creel "kept me going and inspired me the past two years of being a performer." "The man is one of the most inspiration, kind hearted, skilled and incredible people this industry has EVER seen," Likes said.
• The New York City Center, the theater where Creel delivered what Deadline calls "a for-the-ages performance" in a 2022 revival of Into the Woods, said in a post on X: "We lost our prince. The New York City Center and Encores! family is devastated by the death of Gavin Creel today. The world has less light."

(More Broadway stories.)