Gavin Creel, Tony-winning Broadway star, dies at 48

Broadway just lost a star.

Tony-winning theatre actor and Broadway star Gavin Creel, who appeared in Hair, Hello, Dolly, Into the Woods and more, died Monday at his home in Manhattan of “metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma”, his publicist confirmed to the New York Times. He was 48.

Metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma is a type of cancer.

Creel, a Broadway veteran of 20 years, got honoured with his first ever Tony in 2017, winning the award for best featured actor in a musical for Hello, Dolly, and before that was nominated for Hair in 2009 and for Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002.

The actor also got himself a Grammy award in 2023 for Best Musical Theatre Album for the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

Creel first stepped onto the Broadway stage in 2002 with Thoroughly Modern Millie, where his performance earned him his first Tony nomination and the chance to work alongside Sutton Foster. 

He later appeared in the original Chicago cast of Sondheim’s Road Show before making his Broadway return in the 2004 revival of La Cage aux Folles. In 2006, Creel made his West End debut as Bert in Mary Poppins.

Creel also has some TV credits under his name, like Eloise at the Plaza and its sequel, Eloise at Christmastime, Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure and American Horror Stories.