Levi Kreis

Last updated

Levi Kreis
Birth nameLevi Kreis
Born (1981-11-04) November 4, 1981 (age 42)
Oliver Springs, Tennessee
Genres Southern Soul, Gospel, Pop
Occupation(s)Actor, Singer/Songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals, piano,
Years active2005–present
LabelsVision 9 Records
Website LeviKreis.com

Levi Kreis (born November 4, 1981) is an American actor and singer from Oliver Springs, Tennessee. In 2010, he won a Tony Award for playing Jerry Lee Lewis in Million Dollar Quartet .

Contents

Career

Music

Kreis's debut album, One of the Ones, was released on November 17, 2005, and was accompanied by an appearance on a special Sirius XM's edition of The Apprentice . Four hopefuls were chosen from thousands of submissions. The two teams had a challenge to write, record, produce and package an artist for XM Cafe; Kreis and his team won the challenge. He followed his debut album with The Gospel According to Levi, confronting religion and its unhealthy views on sexuality, specifically as it relates to the LGBT community and conversion therapy (Kreis did six years with Exodus International). In 2009, Kreis won the OutMusic Award for his song "Stained Glass Window", a song inspired by the Del Shores play Southern Baptist Sissies . In addition to Kreis's early musical activism, his compositions have been featured on Days of Our Lives , Young and the Restless , The Vampire Diaries , Sons of Anarchy , So You Think You Can Dance , Mob Wives , and films The War Room and Kiss the Bride . Kreis has settled into the southern soul genre and released an EP, "Bad Habit", on March 20, 2020.

Acting

Kreis was cast in the role of Roger in the national tour of Rent . He next starred in Don't Let Go starring Katharine Ross and Scott Wilson. He also played opposite Matthew McConaughey with the role of Adam Meiks in Bill Paxton's directorial debut Frailty .

Kreis was part of the original cast of One Red Flower: Letters from 'Nam , a musical based on the book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam . The musical was written and directed by Paris Barclay.

The producers of One Red Flower: Letters from 'Nam later sought Kreis to portray Jerry Lee Lewis in the Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet . On June 13, 2010, he received the Tony Award for "Best Featured Actor in a Musical" for the role. [1] He also won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, along with a Drama League nomination. Kreis left the show in March 2011 following an injury. [2]

Other notable stage credits include the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Violet , Smokey Joe's Cafe at Arena Stage, and Pump Boys and Dinettes at The Village Theater.

Kreis was involved in the development of the musicals Mozart, l'opéra rock and Get Jack . He starred as Pastor Jimmy Ray Brewton in the film A Very Sordid Wedding (2017) and as Tom Cutler in the film The Divide (2018). Beginning in October 2021, Kreis starred as narrator Hermes in the first US national tour of Hadestown . [3]

Personal life

In the May 2010 edition of The Rage Monthly, a San Diego gay lifestyle magazine, Kreis answered questions from the author Bill Biss about coming out, saying:

I think it was the first of many moves toward me dispelling what I call the illusion of limitation. To think that opportunities become limited because of anything such as sexuality, age, race, etc, is to not have faith in the absolute support the universe has in our creative expression. It's like telling God that He is incapable! It's like telling me that there is something wrong with me. I can't subscribe to any of this anymore. I believe nature even teaches us that all life supports itself, and that very support is ours to the degree we believe it to be. I believe that God is all-supportative, all-good and there is no opposition to that. To live in this space, own whom you are and step into life with this level of authority and faith is how I hoped to live ever since I released that first CD and came out. [4]

Kreis is a licensed spiritual practitioner through the Centers for Spiritual Living and launched a podcast called The Church of Kreis in March 2020, focusing on the law of attraction and practical self-improvement.

He is married to classical-crossover artist Jason Antone [ citation needed ].

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Balls of Fire</span> 1957 single by Jerry Lee Lewis

"Great Balls of Fire" is a 1957 popular song recorded by American rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun Records and featured in the 1957 movie Jamboree. It was written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer. The Jerry Lee Lewis 1957 recording was ranked as the 96th greatest song ever by Rolling Stone. It is written in AABA form. It sold one million copies in its first 10 days of release in the United States making it one of the best-selling singles in the United States at that time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Grey</span> American actor, singer, dancer, director, and photographer (born 1932)

Joel Grey is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer, and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret on Broadway as well as in the Bob Fosse directed 1972 film adaptation. He has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. He earned the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zachary Levi</span> American actor (born 1980)

Zachary Levi Pugh is an American actor and singer. He starred as Chuck Bartowski in the series Chuck, and as the title character in Shazam! and its 2023 sequel, as a part of the DC Extended Universe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Million Dollar Quartet</span> 1956 recording of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash performing together

"Million Dollar Quartet" is a recording of an impromptu jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash made on December 4, 1956, at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The recording was first released in Europe in 1981 as The Million Dollar Quartet with 17 tracks. A few years later more tracks were discovered and released as The Complete Million Dollar Session. In 1990, the recordings were released in the United States as Elvis Presley: The Million Dollar Quartet. This session is considered a seminal moment in rock and roll.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">André De Shields</span> American entertainer (born 1946)

André Robin De Shields is an American actor, singer, dancer, director, and choreographer. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award, Grammy Award, and Tony Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anaïs Mitchell</span> American singer-songwriter

Anaïs Mitchell is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and playwright. Mitchell has released eight studio albums, including Hadestown (2010), Young Man in America (2012), Child Ballads (2013), and Anaïs Mitchell (2022).

Euan Douglas George Morton is a Scottish actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Boy George in the musical Taboo, receiving nominations for the Laurence Olivier Award and Tony Award for his performance. He played the role of King George in the musical Hamilton on Broadway from July 2017 to September 10, 2023.

Tom Hewitt is an American actor and Broadway stage performer, and a native of Victor, Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Page</span> American actor and singer

John Patrick Page is an American actor, low bass singer, and playwright. He originated the roles of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the Grinch in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, and Hades in Hadestown. He also played Menenius in Red Bull Theater's Coriolanus.

Lillias White is an American actress and singer. She is particularly known for her performances in Broadway musicals. In 1989 she won an Obie Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway musical Romance in Hard Times. In 1997 she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for portraying Sonja in Cy Coleman's The Life. She was nominated for a Tony Award again in 2010 for her work as Funmilayo in Fela Kuti's Fela!.

"Wild One" or "Real Wild Child" is an Australian rock and roll song written by Johnny Greenan, Johnny O'Keefe, and Dave Owens. While most sources state that O'Keefe was directly involved in composing the song, this has been questioned by others. Sydney disc jockey Tony Withers was credited with helping to get radio airplay for the song but writer credits on subsequent versions often omit Withers, who later worked in the United Kingdom on pirate stations Radio Atlanta and, as Tony Windsor, on Radio London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Yorkey</span> American playwright

Brian Yorkey is an American playwright and lyricist. His works often explore dark and controversial subject matter such as mental illness, grief, the underbelly of suburbia, and ethics in both psychiatry and public education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reeve Carney</span> American actor and singer-songwriter

Reeve Jefferson Carney is an American actor and singer-songwriter. He is best known for originating the role of Orpheus in the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown. He also played Dorian Gray in the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, and Riff Raff in the Fox musical television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again.

<i>Million Dollar Quartet</i> (musical) Jukebox musical

Million Dollar Quartet is a jukebox musical with a book by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux. It dramatizes the Million Dollar Quartet recording session of December 4, 1956, among early rock and roll/country stars who recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, which are Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, and newcomer Jerry Lee Lewis. The musical opened on Broadway in 2010, after several tryouts and regional productions, and spawned a 2011 West End production.

Robert Hugh Carvel is a British actor. He has twice won a Laurence Olivier Award: for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical, and for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as Rupert Murdoch in Ink. For the latter role, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Play.

Phillip Boykin is an American actor and bass-baritone singer. He's currently starring in the Broadway production of Hadestown as Hades.

<i>Hadestown</i> 2006 musical by Anaïs Mitchell

Hadestown is a sung-through musical with music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell. It tells a version of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice, a young girl looking for something to eat, goes to work in a hellish industrial version of the Greek underworld to escape poverty and the cold, and her poor singer-songwriter lover Orpheus comes to attempt to rescue her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eva Noblezada</span> American actress and singer (born 1996)

Eva Maria Noblezada is an American actress and singer.

Robert Horn is an American playwright, screenwriter and producer. He is best known on the stage for his Tony Award-winning book for the Broadway musical adaptation of Tootsie, as well as 13, Disney Theatrical's Hercules, and the Broadway musical Shucked. For film and television, he is best known as the screenwriter for Netflix's 13: the Musical and the Disney Channel Original Movies Teen Beach Movie, Teen Beach 2, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, and The Suite Life Movie.

References

  1. ↑ "Who's Nominated?". Tony Awards. IBM Corp. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
  2. ↑ Hetrick, Adam (March 11, 2011). "Tony Award Winner Levi Kreis Exits Million Dollar Quartet Early Due to Injury". playbill.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Hadestown on Broadway". Archived from the original on November 10, 2021.
  4. ↑ Biss, Bill (May 3, 2010). "Levi Kreis is an Out Entertainer with Faith, Passion and Spirit". Rage Monthly. Archived from the original on July 8, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.