Bernadette Peters ready to go on ‘musical adventure’ at Ferguson
By the time most people reach their mid-70s, they’re slowing down. Bernadette Peters, not so much. Between her concerts, musicals and TV appearances, the iconic singer and actor — who turned 75 in February — is as busy now as she’s ever been.
“No, I don’t envision retiring,” Peters said in a phone interview. “Let me put it this way. My singing teacher is 96.”
While weight training keeps Peters in shape, it’s her passion for performing that keeps her spirit thriving.
“I love singing,” she said. “I feel like it’s a privilege. Performing is like traveling to a different country, and I don’t know what’s going to happen when I get there.”
Peters’ next destination is Ferguson Center for the Arts, for “An Evening with Bernadette Peters” Saturday.
Her lifetime journey launched in New York City’s Queens borough when she was still Bernadette Lazzara. The daughter of Sicilian-American parents, she’s the youngest of three. Her father drove a bread delivery truck.
She used to sing in front of the television set so, when she was 3, her mother arranged for her to appear on “Juvenile Jury,” a talk show in which children were panelists. At 5, she was on “Name That Tune.”
“Performing was something I just loved doing,” Peters said. “Growing up, it was important to me.”
At home, albums by Tony Bennett, Lena Horne and Frank Sinatra were in regular rotation. She spent most Sunday nights enthralled by the Broadway musical numbers on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
By age 9, she had her Actors Equity Card in the name Bernadette Peters (Peter was her father’s name) and was cast in
several television specials. At 13, she was on the road in a production of “Gypsy.” At 20, she earned a Drama Desk Award for the off-Broadway show “Dames at Sea” and made her first appearance on “The Tonight Show.”
“That’s when people on the street started talking to me,” she said. “And that’s when I thought, ‘Oh, people know who I am.’ ”
Peters has garnered three Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, three Emmy and four Grammy Award nominations, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her most celebrated roles have been in musicals by the late Stephen Sondheim, including “Follies,” “Into the Woods” and “Sunday in the Park with George.”
Last May in London, she paid tribute to Sondheim in an all-star concert. This fall, she’ll return to London for the show’s 16-week revival.
“Stephen and I were wonderful friends,” she said. “I have a strong connection to his music. It makes so much sense to me. People who write the lyrics and music together, their connection to the song is really emphatic. Working with him was like working with Shakespeare, but you could actually ask him what he meant when he wrote this.”
In a 1999 Washington Post article, Sondheim said of Peters, “Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time. … Bernadette is flawless as far as
I’m concerned. I can’t think of anything negative.”
TV viewers might know Peters from recent roles on “Mozart in the Jungle” and “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” for which she earned an Emmy nomination. She recently finished production on “High Desert,” an Apple TV+ series scheduled to debut this year.
During the interview, Peters’ rescue dogs, Charlie and Rosalia, barked in the background to announce their dogwalker’s arrival.
“As a child,” Peters said, “I begged my mother and begged my mother, and when I was 9 years old, we finally got a dog.”
In 1998, her love of animals led Peters and her good friend, the late Mary Tyler Moore, to establish Broadway Barks, a nonprofit that promotes adopting shelter animals. To help fund the organization, Peters donates the proceeds from three children’s books she wrote about rescues.
“Oh, oh,” she added excitedly, “a few days ago, I helped someone in my building adopt a dog.”
Charlie and Rosalia will be home when Peters takes the stage with the Virginia Symphony at the Ferguson. During the concert, she’ll perform songs “that remind me of things that are good,” she said. And she’ll invite the audience to share in the musical adventure.
“I feel like we’ll all be in this room together,” Peters said, “so I want people to go on a journey with me. We’re there to go on this experience together. Hopefully, we’ll all have a good time.”