April 18, 1976: I don’t know about where you live, but nearly everyone I know in Portland is a hyphenate (lawyer/farmer/author/chicken-wrangler), even I am an actor-writer-ne’er-do-well, making today’s birthday gay guy a most certain honorary citizen & a gay hero & a many word hyphenate. Gavin Creel is an activist/actor/singer/songwriter, & he is also one of founders of Broadway Impact, an organization of theatre professionals fighting for LGBT Equality.

Creel came out publicly in a 2009 interview in The Advocate. He has been honored as one of Out Magazine’s OUT 100. He has performed & given speeches at events benefiting The Human Rights Campaign. Creel toured with The Cyndi Lauper True Colors concert series & sang on the Capitol lawn at the 2009 National Equality March. Besides all the original Broadway cast albums, Creel has 3 solo vocal albums including Get Out, released in Spring 2012.

Creel was in the cast of the terrific revivial of Hair on both Broadway (2009) & The West End (2010). Creel earned Tony Award nominations for Hair & his Broadway debut, Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002). He has also appeared on Broadway in La Cage Aux Folles (2004) & the West End production of Mary Poppins. He’s come a long way since his first stage appearance when, as a high school sophomore, Creed palyed Sir Sagamore in Camelot; speaking 2 words: “& mine.”

“Talking about sexuality, sexual orientation & understanding how sexual identity factors into all of our thinking, is a conversation that I believe everyone should fearlessly enter into. It drives me crazy how “gay issues” so often appear to be just for the gays & are therefore relegated to the outside edges of a newspaper or newscast or even election (except when it is conveniently spun into the hot topic to help mobilize people against us for the sake of “morality”. I love who I am, but I don’t see me & my gay friends as a bunch of homos who should be set apart from the rest. I don’t agree with those in our community who think that as gay people we are special & should therefore keep ourselves isolated from certain straight-associated thinking or conventions. If I really am special, I don’t need to separate myself to stand out (yet another thing I would say to the pimple-faced, show-choir-obsessed, teenage version of me). I hope the words are call to everyone: sexy straights, bi beauties, terrific trans people &, of course, us gorgeous gays.”

Although I appreciate him shirtless in Hair, Gavin Creel must now to wear a white shirt & black tie as Elder Price in the London production of The Book Of Mormon, for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor In A Musical.

 “Fans should follow me across the country & stalk me because I will put out. I will make out with every single one of them!”

Gavin Creel celebrates his 39 years birthday today.