York Theatre Company's publicity for its show Compose Yourself! The Music of Larry Grossman, which will be presented this weekend for five performances only, identifies cast member Lorna Luft with the credit "Guys and Dolls." Regardless of her two years on the Guys and Dolls tour as Adelaide, a starring role on Broadway in Promises, Promises when she was still a teenager and an international concert career spanning five decades, Luft is usually thought of first and foremost as Judy Garland's daughter. Even as an entertainer, she may be best remembered as an adolescent performing with her mother in mid-1960s concerts and TV shows.
Larry Grossman didn't invite her to be in York's revue because of all that. He wanted to work again with the actress who played Peppermint Patty in his 1983 off-Broadway musical
Snoopy. Luft followed
Snoopy with another off-Broadway role, in the drama
Extremities, but moved out of New York not long afterward. She returned for holiday-season engagements at Rainbow & Stars in the late '80s and early '90s, but has been living in Los Angeles and England. Her last appearance on a New York stage was a surprise duet of "After You've Gone" with Rufus Wainwright in his 2006 Judy Garland tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall.
Of late Luft has been busy with her own Garland tribute. She just spent two and a half months touring Australia with her
"Songs My Mother Taught Me" concert, then did the show in Las Vegas for a weekend in late June. Earlier this year she took it on a U.K. tour, to coincide with the release of the Songs My Mother Taught Me CD in Britain. The show ran in London's West End in the summer of 2004, and in the States she's performed it in Beverly Hills and Fort Lauderdale.
Luft talked at length about her mother, her children (Garland's only grandchildren) and many other topics—from pop music to politics—during our interview on Wednesday. We spoke over lunch at P.J. Clarke's, a couple of blocks from York's theater in the East 50s. Luft was in the midst of Compose Yourself!'s four-day, nearly round-the-clock rehearsal period. Grossman, composer of the Broadway musicals Goodtime Charley, Grind and A Doll's Life, cherrypicked the performers for Compose Yourself!, and Luft says he has called it "his dream cast." She'll be singing from Grossman's theater scores, as well as the many tunes he's written for TV specials, recordings and cabaret, along with Howard McGillin, Liz Larsen, Jason Graae, Darius de Haas and Nikki Renee Daniels. Grossman will be on stage too, as pianist. For tickets, go to www.yorktheatre.org or call 212-935-5820.
Do you go even further back with Larry Grossman than Snoopy?
Larry Grossman wrote my very first nightclub act. I tell the story in "Songs My Mother Taught Me": I did my first nightclub act at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City; I followed six chimpanzees with gold lamé tuxedos, and a diving horse, and I was introduced as "the scintillating Miss Erna Lust."
How's it been going with Compose Yourself!?
I'm just exhausted.
Four days [only for rehearsal]. I thought I was going to sing two songs and go home. Meanwhile, 40 songs later... This show is basically scaring the hell out of me right now. I've sort of gotten into a comfort zone of doing concert work and doing my show, "Songs My Mother Taught Me." Fortunately, I've worked with a lot of the cast before. I've worked with Jason in
Snoopy, I've worked with Liz Larsen in
Girl Crazy. Howard McGillin and I did this awful movie together—but we had a great time—called
Where the Boys Are '84. He was my boyfriend in
Where the Boys Are. The only two I haven't worked with are Darius and Nikki, and they're just shockingly talented.
I was fortunate to do enough theater in this town [and to work] with Michael Bennett, with Baayork Lee, with all these great Broadway people that made me a team player. There's something in me that'll always be that, because that's how I was brought up to be in New York. I think that's really important. If you come in with an attitude, they'll knock you down in this town really quickly. I'm really lucky and really proud and really grateful to have that training underneath me to say "I'm with you guys."
Would you like to move back to New York?
I could live here if I had a job. But to come back and start looking for a job now would be really, really tough. I can't lie about my age. I'm 55. You've got a lot of people who have really lived and worked in New York. They are going to get their foot in the door—and rightfully so, they should—before I do.
The one thing that I miss in New York is the camaraderie of the Broadway family. It's something that I'm so pleased hasn't changed. Everybody in New York who is doing a show—they're all in the same boat. They all work together; there's a big family feeling, which they don't have in other places. It's unique and special to New York and the Broadway community.
