Broadway Vet Lawrence Merritt Has Passed Away

Broadway vet Lawrence Merritt passed away on January 22, 2023. He succumbed to COVID/pneumonia at the Riverside Rehabilitation and Healing Center in NYC, where he was receiving treatment since last spring.

Lawrence appeared in over eight Broadway shows, including Applause (as a Duane Fox replacement), No Strings, Dear World, Pippin, On The Town, Golden Rainbow and Evita and on TV specials for Kraft Music Hall, Ann-Margret, Anne Bancroft and numerous live Ed Sullivan shows. His leading ladies in the nightclub circuit included Juliet Prowse, Ann-Margret, the Raquel Welch world tour and partnering Ginger Rogers for a year and a half. After surviving a car accident involving a spinal cord injury, he learned to walk again and discovered his voice through acting. Lawrence began performing many major roles regionally and in New York City for the last twenty years.

He became involved with Theatre Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB), "dedicated to advancing actors and writers with disabilities and changing the image of people with disabilities from dependence to independence" and appeared in their 2013 ten one-act play festival, featuring works by Neil LaBute, Samuel D. Hunter, Jerrod Bogard and Lynn Manning. Lawrence also appeared at the HERE theater in a solo play The Pattern at Pendarvis in July, 2018, playing a 91 year old gay man recalling his past as a preservationist in the Midwest, being interviewed by a young gay journalist.

A long time Dancers Over 40 member, Lawrence joined the DO40 board in 2010 and received a DO40 Legacy Award in 2013, along with Chita Rivera, Bob Avian, Louise Quick and Skip Randall.