Post-break-up and Chicago stage stint, out musician makes Broadway debut
by Jason P Freeman
The Broadway debut of Million Dollar Quartet opens April 11, 2010.
This time last year, in April ’09, indie artist-turned Tony-award hopeful Levi Kreis was sitting in a Windy City Starbucks, sipping herbal tea in Lincoln Park. As he discussed the then second extended Chicago run of Million Dollar Quartet—the musical production in which Kreis originated the role of Jerry Lee Lewis jamming with Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash—he lamented over his longstanding lover and wished to walk his dog, pining for the L.A. homestead that MDQ would keep him from for well over a year. “I hope my dog remembers me,” he said.
However, “…life on the road,” Kreis recently reminisced, “…[and] the months away from home adds up to the point where it can really take a toll on a relationship.” The toll in Kreis’s question was likely charged by the promotional touring of his most-recent CD, Where I Belong, trumping Taylor Swift’s March 2010 number-one spot on MTVMusic.com for his video “Nothing at All,” and portraying Lewis at Chicago’s Apollo Theater from October 2008 until being cast in MDQ’s Broadway production, reprising his role as the fervent pianist and rock ‘n roll-er, and relocating to New York in January 2010. “After years of [being on the road] then jumping straight into this musical,” he adds, “I regret to announce that I am divorced now. We parted ways [last year].”
Yet 300 city promo tours, new musicals in New York and parting partners aren’t enough to keep this thespian on the outs. As a handsome star of stage and an award-winning musician, Kreis is clearly a catch, and he didn’t stay single for long. “I do have someone I’ve been seeing for eight months now,” he says, and calls the relocation to NYC a “welcomed change.”
Of becoming a lead player in one of the world’s most cultured and comprehensive theatrical societies, Kreis contends, “I’m learning that the Broadway community is so very giving to our gay community, and to be in the company of such excellence is truly inspiring on a day to day basis.”
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