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A beloved 13-year-old actress died last week. Best known for her work on Broadway, this lovely young actress was also featured on Saturday Night Live more than once and had a bright acting and singing future ahead of her.
According to her family, Laurel Griggs suffered from a “massive” asthma attack outside of her home in New York City, where she lived with her family and went to school.
Her grandfather, David Rivlin, said in an interview that she was a “child that everybody would dream to have”, and expressed several times how deeply she would be missed.
Grigg’s was cast as Polly in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at the incredible age of just six – she made her Broadway debut before most kids even knew what Broadway was! She impressed someone, too, because she continued to land high profile acting roles.
In 2013 she joined the cast of “Once”, a Tony Award-winning musical, and played the role of Ivanka for 17 months. Griggs’s role in Once was the longest that any one actress has played Ivanka, according to IMDB.
The director for “Cat” said that Laurel was one of the “first” children that was cast in the play, and that “she had such a wonderful energy and spirit” that contributed to the show.
According to her Instagram, Griggs has said that her time spent on Saturday Night Live was some of the best of her life. Here, she is pictured with Kenan Thompson, the longest-running cast member in the history of SNL. She used the hashtag “dreams do come true”.
She also had a role in “café Society”, an Amazon exclusive that was released in 2016 starring Steve Carell, and did voice work for the series “Bubble Guppies”. By all accounts, Griggs had an incredibly amazing future in entertainment ahead of her.
The organizer of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS shared that Laurel “exuded sweetness and sincerity, as she did on stage”.
Young Broadway Actor News, a site for children that work in theaters all around New York, shared her story and said Laurel was “a brilliant young lady whose impact in the lives of everyone she met went far and beyond her immense talent”.
The family has asked that instead of donating flowers or gifts, donations be made in her honor to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
