Actor, musician Levi Kreis, starring in 'Hadestown' in SF, talks about the struggle to build career as an openly gay performer.
Long before he was lighting up the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, where he plays Hermes (the narrator) in a touring production of the Broadway hit “Hadestown,” Tennessee native Levi Kreis was making his own gospel and country music by the age of 12. Despite his talent, he says, he had trouble signing with a record label due to the fact that he was openly gay.
However, Kreis kept at it and overcame prolonged personal and professional obstacles — several years of gay conversion therapy, being kicked out of his conservative college, violent gay-bashing, a struggle with drug addiction — to start a successful career as a musician and actor.
He got sober, continued to work on his music, and got his big break after winning a syndicated radio version of “The Apprentice.” Kreis has since released nine albums, which span across such genres as piano pop, gospel, country, R&B and jazz. He’s also a songwriter whose compositions have been featured in over a dozen popular films and television shows, and have cracked the Top 10 on several music charts.
He was also drawn to acting, and upon advice from his manager, Kreis auditioned for the role of Jerry Lee Lewis in Broadway’s “Million Dollar Quartet.” He got the part, and went on to win a Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critic’s Circle honors for the role. He’s also appeared in such films as “Frailty,” with Matthew McConaughey. Besides the touring “Hadestown,” Kreis will be on the road later this year with his annual Home for the Holidays concert tour. As for what comes after all that, Levi hopes to continue sharing his story, and may have something very special in the works…
The singer-songwriter and actor spoke to us about his career during a break from working on “Hadestown.”
Q: How does being a music maker and composer yourself impact your work and experience as a performer of other people’s music? How do those tie in together?
A: The tie-in for me is being an actor. Whether I’m slipping into a space that I birthed, a song that I wrote, or whether I’m trying on the experience of someone else’s song or character, the things that make an honest, authentic, believable interpretation for any of those are qualities that one would hone in and develop as an actor. For some reason, I have always felt like that ties everything in for me, just to be able to understand the emotional journey of a character or the emotional journey I was personally going through when I wrote something.
Q: You’ve had to overcome quite a lot to get to where you are, how would you say those experiences contribute to your work and your art?
A: It’s important for me to acknowledge that I spent the majority of my 20s being courted by some of the greatest music moguls and major record labels, and generally finding that when they discovered my sexuality, the marketing team did not know how to market someone who is openly gay. Had I not been openly gay, in my 20s, in the 2000’s, I probably would have gone further, and that was very hard for me. I felt like no matter what I did, I could never express myself or make advancements in my career, so that’s when I turned to being an independent artist, and turned to the LGBTQ community to tell my story. Those experiences gave me the determination to tell my story, regardless of how many obstacles I came across.
I don’t rely on yesses from other people anymore, because I never got them, and that just kind of lights a fire under me still. Nobody ever gave me that platform, I had to create it for myself.
Q: You’ve been making music and honing your craft since a very young age, if you had a message or any advice to say to the kid version of you, what would it be?
A: I would tell him that there is no arrival point, that careers ebb and flow. Enjoy the journey, be true to who you are at any moment, and know that the only person you have to please is yourself.
Q: You’re playing the role of Hermes (the narrator) in ‘Hadestown’ right now, what is it about this character that you’re personally drawn to?
A: The first thing that attracted me to ‘Hadestown’ was the music by Anaïs Mitchell. As someone who is a product of the South, of blues, of soul, of country, of Americana music, it’s something that is already in my DNA. On top of that, the character of Hermes leans into more of the quarter of Americana that I grew up leaning into, which is bluesy gospel and jazz, and so that was an additional appeal. Then, the fact that he is a very particular type of showman. I seem to attract those roles, whether it’s preachers or Jerry Lee Lewis, or whatever the case, I like to step into those roles and just bring my own signature to it.
Q: Are there any other roles or characters that you’re really hoping to play one day, or a general production you would like to one day be a part of?
A I’ve always been a fan of developing new works more so than falling into pre-existing pieces. There’s so many remarkable roles being created right now in the privacy of writing rooms and studio workshops. Some of my favorite roles are roles that I have workshopped and invested in, and didn’t quite make it to Broadway, that the world may never see. This is a hard question to answer, because I do believe that there’s so much good stuff in the making, that to narrow that down to something … I just don’t want to!
Q: Could you ever see yourself writing a play or musical?
A: Funny you should ask that, because I have been working on my own musical for 18 months. I think it’s going to be a beautiful fusion of my music life and my acting life. It’s also a very unconventional way to tell an autobiographical story; we’re using a lot of theatrical tools that I think are going to be very fresh for people to experience, but the thing I’m most excited about is that I very boldly move right into some very hard issues that are relevant to the LGBTQ community, and I hope that it will be a very healing piece for a lot of people in that community.
By Anaïs Mitchell, presented by BroadwaySF
Through: July 3
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St. (at Hyde), San Francisco
Running time: Two hours and 40 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: $56-$256 (subject to change); www.broadwaysf.com
