She’s one of those stars whose first name is all you need to know.
Bernadette is coming to Provincetown. Bernadette Peters, on Sunday, July 19, at Town Hall.
You are viewing: Who Is The Queen Of Broadway
“I’ve never been to Provincetown. I’m looking forward to the audience and this beautiful place I’ve only heard about,” says Peters. “I’m here to entertain and have everyone go with me on this journey.”
She’ll be singing Rogers and Hammerstein, lots of Sondheim and her not-to-be-missed version of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” while lying on the piano. Songs she’s been singing and loving all her life.
Peters first met her musical director, Marvin Laird, when she was 13 years old. Laird was the rehearsal pianist for the National Tour of “Gypsy” when Peters was understudying the role of Baby June. “I was out on the road with my mother. My sister was understudying Louise. It was our family’s story, really personal for me,” says Peters.
She began her career singing on television when she was three-and-a-half years old. “It was live in those days,” she says. “I didn’t know I was on television because I didn’t come home and see it played back. I was just standing there fantasizing play singing while these big machines crossed in front of me.”
Read more : Who Wrote The Song Peace In The Valley
Originally, it was her mother’s idea that she perform. She took ballet, singing and piano lessons. “When I was 17 and a young adult I was realizing it was a great emotional place for me to feel what I was feeling and I started to really love it. It became mine,” Peters says.
“The good news is that I was not a child star,” she says. “I was just a child actress so I didn’t have to reinvent myself after I grew up. I really knew who I was.”
She may not have been a child star but she certainly grew up to be one. “Dames at Sea” was her first big hit when she was 19 years old. She never stopped working, conquering movies, television and Broadway. She’s won Emmys, Grammys and three Tonys (“Dames at Sea,” “Song and Dance” and “Annie Get Your Gun.”)
She’s best know on Broadway for “Mack and Mable,” “Sunday In the Park With George,” “Into the Woods,” “Annie Get Your Gun” and Mamma Rose in “Gypsy.”
Her work with Stephen Sondheim is legendary. It began with the workshop of “Sunday In the Park With George.” “He was writing it as we were working on it. Every day a new song would come in and we would wait for it and of course it would knock our socks off,” Peters says.
“He is so thoughtful with actors,” Peters says of Sondheim. “He’s kind. Once when I first got “Children Will Listen” (“Into the Woods”) I lost my place in the music. I forgot the words. He said, ‘Listen, nevermind. I couldn’t do what you do, get out there in front of an audience and perform.’” The great thing about working with Sondheim is, it’s like asking Shakespeare, ‘What did you mean when you wrote that?’”
She recently performed in a reunion concert and panel discussion with the original cast members of “Into The Woods” at BAM. “It was amazing to go back to such great material after you’ve lived 29 years. It’s very fulfilling.”
Read more : Who Inherited Barbara Stanwyck Estate
Peters is currently staring in the Amazon television series “Mozart in the Jungle,” written by Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola and based on the book by Blair Tyndall. Peters plays Gloria Windsor, president and chairman of the board of directors of the orchestra. In the show, “I [Gloria] run the whole shebang and do all the fundraising. I had to go to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. I’m walking down the big stairway and I go, ‘Wow I love this joint.’”
The Queen of Broadway, as she’s often called in the theater press, also gives back. She is a dedicated and devoted animal activist. She and Mary Tyler Moore started Broadway Barks 17 years ago. “We do it in Shubert Alley. The Broadway people come out and walk the dogs around the stage and get them adopted. Broadway people have great hearts,” she says.
In 2012, Peters was awarded a special Tony for her work with Broadway Barks. At the awards presentation, Tom Viola, the past president of Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS, said, “Bernadette’s boundless compassion and generosity represent the best in all of us.”
What: Crown & Anchor Broadway series presents Bernadette Peters
Where: Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.
When: 8 p.m. Sunday, July 19
Tickets: $95-$500, onlyatthecrown.com, (508) 487-1430, box office, 247 Commercial St.
Just the facts
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
