He said during the podcast that he was still scarred by “growing up super Christian my whole life and being a member of the Methodist Church my whole life,” and that he “still tries to this day to heal the pain that the church has caused me to deprogram, and that I am in such pain. an aversion to organized religion and the ways in which it creeps into laws and schools.”

In his adult life, he became an advocate for gay rights and co-founded Broadway Impact, an organization that supported gay marriage when it was still illegal in much of the US.

Creel’s immediately likable stage persona and celebrated tenor earned him plentiful and consistent work in the theater. He treaded the boards on Broadway for twenty years in mainly leading roles and was also a favorite in London’s West End, where he appeared in numerous productions and won an Olivier Award for his work as a hypocritical missionary in ‘The Book of Mormon’ – a performance are undoubtedly influenced by his church youth.

“The Tony really felt like a hug from the community I’ve been a part of for 20 years,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “That feels good. I literally can’t do anything else in my life and I’m still a Tony winner. I would never have done that.”