Photos courtesy Bernadette Peters and Barrington Stage Company
August 24
Interview by Dr. Joshua Sherman
While many people know me as “Dr. Sherman” or “Publisher of Berkshire Magazine,” I’m actually a “Broadway Baby,” having started my career training under such legendary theater artists as Al Hirschfeld, Tony Walton, Peter Harvey, Santo Loquasto, and Willa Kim. My first Broadway credit (at age 18) was as part of Tony Walton’s design team on the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun, starring … (drumroll) Bernadette Peters!
It’s over 25 years since that production opened on Broadway. Recently, I had the great pleasure of chatting with Bernadette after all these years. Here are excerpts from our delightful conversation:
I’ve been a great fan of yours since I was six years old and saw you on the 1986 Tony Awards®, singing “Some People” from Gypsy. That same year, you won your first Tony® for Song & Dance. Long before YouTube existed, I watched that show—which was the 40th Anniversary of the Tony Awards®—on VHS over and over. What do you remember about that night? I wore a purple Bob Mackie dress. I remember winning and how nice that was, and how grateful I was to my manager. We all work so hard, all of us performers. We love it, and we do it for the love, but you have to put in the work. It was a great night, and I appreciated it very much.
After seeing you perform that night, I was determined to see more of your work. I went to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. There, I discovered that at six years old, a young “Bernadette Lazzara” was on the show Name That Tune. What do you remember from that experience? I remember running, running, running! You know, you had to run, ring a bell, and then name the tune. My mother reminded me that I lost on “Yonkers Raceway.” I think that was the title, unless I’m reversing it. I said, “Horses, Horses, Horses,” or “Yonkers Raceway.” It was one or the other, but it was close. I think I won almost $1,000, but not quite. They also gave me sneakers. I'm a shoe person, so I remember the sneakers that they gave me.
Do you still have the sneakers? (Laughs) No.
You started in the industry as a child, and many actors go into the theater because they are starstruck. Who were some of your heroes or celebrity crushes as a child? I grew up watching Million Dollar Movie. I would come home from school by 3:30, and at four o'clock, Million Dollar Movie was on. Those were the movies from the 1930s and 1940s. That's where I learned all about Ruby Keeler, who I went on to play in Dames at Sea with designs by (your mentor) Peter Harvey. From those movies, I learned all about Ruby Keeler and Rita Hayworth. That was my training as a young girl. We also used to watch The Ed Sullivan Show. That was so great, because Ed Sullivan used to have Broadway shows on his show every Sunday night. My mother made sure we had money for me to take lessons, but we didn't have money to go to the theater. I learned about Broadway performers by seeing them do numbers on television.
Television is a very powerful medium, because it can bring live theater into your living room.
That was my experience with you on the ‘86 Tony Awards. It’s very powerful! And live television was so great in those days. I loved when they would do musical specials. You would see Frank Sinatra sing with Lena Horne and Tony Bennett and Harry Belafonte. What could be better?
You mentioned a few of the stars from the ‘40s, including Ruby Keeler. Did you ever get to work with any of them, and did you ever get to meet any of your childhood heroes? I met Ruby Keeler once, I believe, very briefly. I used to do these specials called Night of 100 Stars. I shared a dressing room with Carol Channing, who was so great. Of course, on those shows, you would meet Lana Turner, Rock Hudson, Esther Williams, Joan Collins, and all these stars that I grew up watching. It was really fun.
Moving on to your career on Broadway. You recently starred in Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, but another Jerry Herman show, Mack & Mabel, has one of my all-time favorite scores. Tell me about Jerry Herman and Mack & Mabel. Jerry Herman was always so positive, and what happened with Mack & Mabel is interesting. I had auditioned for it, and I didn't get it, and they hired someone else. Apparently, they fired that person and they hired someone else. Meanwhile, when they hired the second one, I was living in Los Angeles. But at that time, I was in New York, because I was doing game shows. I was on my way to Canada to do a game show and then come back to New York, and Jerry Herman started calling me on the phone. He said, “Where are you now?” I said, “I'm in New York, but I have to go to Bernadette Peters in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! Canada.” He said, “When are you coming back?” That's all he said.
I went to Canada, did a game show called Beat the Clock, came back, and got on a plane to go back to L.A. The plane had engine trouble, and we all had to get off and take a later flight. They didn't have cell phones yet in those days, so I got on a pay phone, I called my manager in L.A., and I said, “I'm not on that plane.” She said, “Wait a minute—David Merrick’s office is on the other line. They want you to stay in New York. Don’t get on the plane. They want you to go into the show!”
Jerry was always a positive force, but all of a sudden, we were out of town somewhere, and he didn’t look happy anymore. He was getting discouraged, because the show wasn't evolving the way he wanted it to. We started in San Diego and went to L.A., where it was a big hit, and then we traveled across the country to make some money before we got to New York. The producer David Merrick put us in a huge outdoor theater—I think it was in St Louis. In those days, the sound was not finessed yet. You would hear your voice coming back at you, and the whole show was totally out of whack. Along the way somewhere, I saw that Jerry was getting disheartened, and that worried me. In those days, they didn't really have dark shows yet. Mabel Normand was a drug addict towards the end of her life, and she died. Everybody kept saying, “You can't have a show where it's so dark at the end.” Then they put in a happy-ever-after, wedding-type thing. There were problems with the show. It never quite held together, and I couldn't put my finger exactly on it. All I know is it's a brilliant score, and I loved working with Jerry.
When I did Hello, Dolly!, I got to talk to him again. I had no idea what a beautifully constructed show Hello, Dolly! was, until I finally became a part of it. At first, I studied the original Thornton Wilder play The Matchmaker, and I realized it was such a great character. I had also seen Carol Channing do it on Broadway. I stole a couple of things from her, and I realized why she wanted to do it for the rest of her life. It’s a totally uplifting experience for the performer and the audience.
You released a full album of Rodgers and Hammerstein. What made you want to record their catalog? I grew up with those albums in my house. I remember listening to Carousel. I just love that show. I fell in love with it when I was a little girl listening to the music.
We talked a little bit about Song & Dance and you winning the Tony Award®, but we didn't mention Andrew Lloyd Webber. Are there any particular stories from that show that you'd like to share? When I was told about the show, I didn't think I was hearing correctly. My manager called me on the phone and said, “The whole first act is just you on stage alone.” I said, “What did you say? Are you saying that I'm alone on stage for the whole first act?” He goes, “Yes, that is correct.” I thought, “Well, that's a challenge. I have to do that, because I love a challenge.” We worked on it. We had to make it more American, be- cause we had to change some of the English references for our audiences here. That was a great experience.
You worked with one of my favorites, Martin Short, on The Goodbye Girl. Do you have any fun memories from working on that project? I loved working with Marty. He just made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. That was my joy in the show, but the members of the creative team really were not seeing eye-to-eye on that show, so it was difficult.
Irving Berlin’s score to Annie Get Your Gun is beyond incredible. Do you have any favorite songs from that score? You know what I love? I really love a little song called “Moonshine Lullaby.”
I LOVE that song! I loved that moment with the kids onstage, and it's a very special song. After I did Dames at Sea, I did several television appearances, and I mostly sang Irving Berlin. I just love songs like, “What'll I Do?” His songs are like little scenes.
Also—when working on a song (whether in a show or in concert), I have to find the impetus behind it. For a song like “Some People” (which you mentioned before), there's an engine that drives that character to want to say those things, and I have to find it.
I love to reinvent songs and personalize them. I try to make everything as personal as possible. I believe that if I make it personal for myself, it becomes personal for the audience, and then they can connect to it.
Of course, your professional and personal relationship with Stephen Sondheim is legendary. Tell me about the first time you met him. I first worked with him on Sunday in the Park with George, and I met him on the first day of rehearsal for that show. He actually sang the score for all of us, and I remember the first number we worked on was “Color and Light,” where Mandy was painting, and I was powdering. I thought, “Oh, my God! I've just died and gone to heaven. This is the most beautiful piece.” I loved it so much.
Without giving away too much, what can audiences expect to hear at Barrington Stage at the 30th Anniversary concert? Do you have your set list put together, or is it still in the works? Not totally. I have an array of songs that I sing from that are very personal to me. I want to make sure that we have a lovely arc of music and emotion for the evening of the show, so the audience feels satisfied by the end.
Have you spent a lot of time in the Berkshires, and do you have any favorite spots or memories? I had a lovely time with John Williams. He brought me to Tangle-wood to sing with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and James Taylor. It was very special. I stayed in a lovely inn, and a herd of deer were outside of my window at dawn.
Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, which not only has Rockwell’s originals, but also has one of the world’s greatest collections of illustration art. You have a special connection to the famed Pinup illustrator Alberto Vargas. He painted the cover to your self-titled album, Bernadette Peters. How did that come about, and do you still have the original Vargas painting? Yes, I do! It's on my living room wall! It’s lovely. He had painted the album cover of The Cars’ Candy-O. It’s an image of a girl lying on a car. That’s where we got the idea for him to do my cover art, and he said he would do it. He was living in L.A., and he hadn't been inspired in a while. He was still mourning the death of his wife, and he hadn't painted in a while. But he painted the cover, and he did a beautiful job.
We're very much looking forward to seeing you here in August at Barrington Stage, and back on Broadway in Spring 2025 in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends. Are there changes happening to the show since it premiered in London? It's pretty much set and being brought over. There might be tiny flip-flopping of a song or something, as far as the order, but it's all pretty much the same.
You've had an incredible career, both on stage and screen, but despite your tremendous celebrity, you've also been able to preserve quite a bit of privacy surrounding your personal life. In this age of social media, in which the route to celebrity is often personal sharing, what piece of advice do you have for any up-and-coming performers on how to build a career but still keep an element of privacy? I was lucky, because I got to do it before social media, which I do a little bit, but it's not really my jam. I certainly tweet when I'm going to be appearing somewhere, because it's good for the venue, and it's just good for everyone to know. I can't advise about social media, but I guess I would say, “Don't do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.” I've always been a very private person, and I don't know if I started out in this day and age how much I would have been comfortable revealing. I think you have to do what you're comfortable with.
Years ago, you were interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio, and you were asked what you would do if you weren't an actor. You said you couldn't do anything else but act. It’s been a while since that interview. Do you still feel that way, or are there other things that you're enjoying in life right now that you're pursuing, even if it's privately? I'm an animal rescuer, so I'm doing that, plus acting. I actually used to go into the city shelters, take out dogs, and bring them to rescue groups. It's a very beautiful experience, because the animals know. They know when they’re safe.
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