Broadway Shockers 2024: Gavin Creel's Untimely Passing Sends the Community Reeling

As 2024 draws to a close, TheaterMania looks back on some of the most jaw-dropping stories of the year.

The first time I saw Gavin Creel onstage, it was in Thoroughly Modern Millie. I remember nothing about it—give me a break, I was 14. What I do recall vividly is seeing him two years later in La Cage aux Folles, singing “With Ann on My Arm.” To this day, I’m convinced he floated across the stage as he performed it.

Then there was Claude in Hair, the boy-man pacifist who dies in Vietnam. Like so many in my theatrical generation, I became a hardcore groupie for that production, seeing it at least half a dozen times. My wife, who wasn’t my wife yet, vividly remembers marching behind Gavin and Jonathan Groff (and thousands of others) for marriage equality in Washington, DC.

Creel had a rare versatility, equally skilled at portraying conflicted leading men and charmingly egotistical cads. He was irresistible as Kodaly in She Loves Me (his only performance that fully exists on film) and as Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods. But it was his Tony-winning turn as Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly! that stands out most. When he opened his mouth to sing “Out thereeeee,” he held the entire theater in a collective swoon.

In the months before his untimely passing in September, Creel showed us another facet of his artistry: raconteur. His one-man show, Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice, revealed an artist discovering new depths in himself, pushing through pain and crisis to find the other side. It’s devastating to think we’ll never see where that path might have led.

Creel’s death—from a cancer diagnosed too late—hit the theater community hard. We’ve lost legends this year: Chita Rivera, James Earl Jones, Glynis Johns, Maggie Smith. But they were in their 90s (Johns was 100), their legacies secure, spanning decades. Creel was just 48, still evolving, still surprising us.

At his tear-streaked memorial at the St. James Theatre earlier this month, friends and family shared stories that felt both personal and universal. Gavin Creel was everyone’s best friend, even if that friendship existed only in your imagination. I knew him through work for nearly a decade, though “friend” would be too generous a term; I had neither his phone number nor his email address. Still, whenever we crossed paths, there was mutual warmth, as if no time had passed. During a Zoom interview about Walk on Through, my 1-year-old daughter barged in and started babbling. Gavin didn’t miss a beat—he stopped mid-sentence to play peekaboo with her. I treasure the screenshot I took.

And then there are the stories of his legendary generosity. Inspired by Sutton Foster’s bagel brunches for the Millie cast, Creel started bringing donuts every Saturday for the West End cast of Mary Poppins when he was playing Bert. He hosted pre-curtain dance parties for the Hair cast and threw a progressive holiday party for the cast of Hello, Dolly!, where each dressing room was decorated with a different theme.

The hardest thing to accept about Creel’s passing is the finality. His performances were always brimming with life, with an energy and vivacity that were uniquely his. And Walk on Through felt like a new beginning: as a writer and storyteller, he was just discovering what he had to say.

I think of something he said in 2017 amid his grueling Tony season for Hello, Dolly! “I want to be respected by my peers and do really great work, even if it gets panned,” he told me. “Even if I get raked over the coals, I want to know that I’m proud of what I’m doing.” Mission accomplished.

I didn’t know Gavin Creel, and yet I did. And now, that voice has gone silent. What remains are the memories—and an overwhelming respect for a short life, lived to its fullest.