Lynda Gravátt, who starred in such productions as 45 Seconds From Broadway, Cat on a Sizzling Tin Roof, The Outdated Settler, and Intimate Attire, died on Feb. 23. She was 76.

I’m actually not prepared to jot down something.

I’ve written so many issues for my beloved Artist Mom. Mentor. Muse.

So many performs. Good ones. Mediocre ones. Borderline dangerous ones. She’s mentioned sure to all of them.

Traversed each woodsy play improvement retreat, which she calls “dangerous summer time camp for adults.”

“However for you Dom, I’ll do it.”

I by no means took that shit frivolously. I met her 25 years in the past by my professor, Glenda Dickerson. I didn’t know then that she would by no means cease exhibiting up for me in my life.

There is no such thing as a different actress on the planet that has been extra transformative to me and my work.

Than the Grand Diva Lynda Gravátt.

I knew she had extra lives than a cat; I simply wasn’t positive what number of had been left.

Quadruple bypass surgical procedures couldn’t hold her from doing eight exhibits every week in my premiere of Skeleton Crew on the Atlantic Theatre Firm. The function she was born to originate.

And what people don’t know, after they noticed Phylicia Rashad choose up the baton for its Broadway premiere, is that it was all the time on Lynda’s shoulders. That she and I talked. That I attempted to sluggish her down for her well being…

However I knew then that she knew precisely the type of life she needed. That she was born for that stage. And after we joked that I must write her components the place she will keep sitting the entire time, I knew that wasn’t actually the reply. She all the time was a ride-it-till-the-wheels-fall-off kinda gal.

We had onerous conversations.  I mentioned issues like, “I don’t want you in my performs anymore. I would like you alive and in my life.”

However actually, I wanted each. Her artwork. Her voice. Her fireplace and her wit. In my performs and in my life.

To the lady who rode for me and so many different Black playwrights. Who fried hen so imply it had us almost combating over it at Sundance Theatre Lab one summer time.

With out her, so many people wouldn’t know the facility of our work.

And Lynda, in the event you’re studying this, and I really feel like you’re…Sit proper in entrance of that check in Heaven that claims “No Smoking, Lynda.”

And lightweight that mutha up. You make the brand new rule. On earth. Heaven. And past.

Thanks for educating me easy methods to do it my means. At all times.

Dominique Morisseau is the creator of Skeleton Crew, Sundown Child, Detroit ’67, and Pipeline, amongst different performs.

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