Entertainer Lorna Luft returns to Feinstein’s/54 Below October 23 with her new nightclub act To “L” and Back. The three-performance engagement marks Luft's return to the New York concert stage after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor earlier this year.
"54 Below has become a very special venue for me because of the way that I am accepted, the way I'm treated there," Luft said. "It makes me happy. My mother had favorite venues, and 54 Below is the top of my list. I love New York City, and I love New York audiences because you know exactly where you stand. They don't suffer fools. They don't sit there politely and applaud. They give their whole entire heart and soul.
"This month is also special cause it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I have been battling it for six years, and we all know that six months ago I had a brain tumor," she continued. "So to step on the stage of my favorite venue and to do that will be overwhelming.”
THE UNTOLD STORY OF A STAR IS BORN
The daughter of entertainment icon Judy Garland, Luft has just published a new book chronicling the history of the film A Star Is Born—its release and its legacy—with co-author Jeffrey Vance. A Star Is Born: Judy Garland and the Film That Got Away includes never-before-seen photographs from her family collection that capture Garland on set and at home during the making of A Star Is Born.
Luft made her professional singing debut on TV’s The Judy Garland Show and went on to featured roles on film and television, including Grease 2, Where the Boys Are ’84, and Murder, She Wrote. Luft technically made her Broadway debut in 1967 when she joined her mother onstage in her 1967 Palace Theatre concert, but she took the stage on her own in 1971 as a replacement as the female lead in the musical Promises, Promises. Other stage appearances include the 1981 national tour of They're Playing Our Song, the 1992 tour of Guys and Dolls, and both U.S. and U.K. tours of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Her 1998 family memoir Me and My Shadows was adapted as an Emmy-winning TV miniseries.
For tickets, priced $60–$70, visit 54Below.com.
Luft has been a special guest on Playbill's Broadway on the High Seas cruises. Cabins are now on sale for Playbill’s Broadway on the Rhône River 2 cruise April 7–14, 2019, featuring Melissa Errico, Norm Lewis, Rebecca Luker, Marc Kudisch, and Seth Rudetsky, and Broadway in Bordeaux With Michael Feinstein September 1–9, 2019, with other celebrity guests to be announced! Call Playbill Travel for tickets at 866-455-6789 or visit PlaybillTravel.com.
