Not a day goes by that Bernadette Peters doesn’t miss her previous buddy Stephen Sondheim.
“I do think of him every day,” she advised me over lunch at Cafe Luxembourg. “I’m singing his music, you know. And I’ve had dreams about him. He should be here. He should be here.”
Peters is again on Broadway this season after seven years away, alongside Lea Salonga and 15 others in an exquisite revue of the late composer’s work known as “Old Friends.”
The viewers on the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is very rapt and weepy each time the beloved actress takes the stage, as a result of she performed such a significant position in bringing these timeless songs to life.
Peters, 77, originated a few of the nice Sondheim components: the rapping Witch in 1986’s “Into the Woods” and mannequin Dot in 1984’s “Sunday in the Park with George.”
Later, the New York native starred in revivals of his “A Little Night Music” and “Follies.”
However the collaboration — some have known as her his “muse” — all began with the out-there George Seurat musical “Sunday.”
“When I first met him, he made me nervous,” Peters mentioned of Sondheim, who’d already delivered notoriously tough exhibits equivalent to “Sweeney Todd” and “Company.”
“The first song I got was the first song, ‘Sunday in the Park with George,’ with all those words. And I was nervous like crazy.”
The jitters quickly went away, although. “He was very kind to performers,” she mentioned.
Peters’ favourite recollections of Sondheim, who died in 2021, have been when he’d come again to her dressing room and provides notes.
“I was lucky that the writer was there for me to talk to and ask questions. ‘What did you mean when you wrote that?’ It’s a great gift.”
And the expertise, which bought her and her buddy and co-star Mandy Patinkin Tony nominations, proved life-changing.
“That show was so remarkable and it opened me up so much that I thought, well, I’ll just do any show that [Sondheim and James Lapine] write that comes along. I’ll say ‘yes,’ no matter what. And he called me for ‘Into the Woods,’ so I went and I did that.”
Now, Peters is in “Old Friends,” which started as a gala placed on by producer Cameron Waterproof coat in London. Its success led to a four-month run within the West Finish, earlier than heading to Los Angeles and at last to Broadway.
Within the present, the actress croons heart-wrenching numbers she’s identified for, like “Losing My Mind” and “Send in the Clowns.”
“As I get older all the lyrics really seem to have a lot more meaning for me,” she mentioned.
However Peters has additionally thrown us some Sondheim curveballs. For “Into the Woods,” the fairytale musical which has advanced right into a cherished traditional, Peters doesn’t sing “Children Will Listen” because the Witch — she turns into younger Little Purple Using Hood as a substitute.
Her tune “I Know Things Now” is about being chased by the Huge Unhealthy Wolf.
“I went, ‘What have I done?! I’m singing a song a child sings, and now I’m an adult talking about . . . is this like a MeToo movement song?!’,” she mentioned. “So I figured out how to do it.”
In an, erm, much less harmless second, Peters hilariously takes on Mazeppa, the “bump it with a trumpet” stripper from “Gypsy,” in “You Got To Get A Gimmick.”
Truly, the actress performs the brass instrument so properly that a few of her associates thought the music was piped in.
“So, I’ve gotta be a little sloppy with it,” she mentioned.
Peters has a busy summer time forward. “Old Friends” runs by means of June 15. Go see it.
Additionally a movie star, having performed reverse Steve Martin in “The Jerk,” she met up with me the identical week she did a day of capturing for “A Real Pain” Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg’s upcoming musical-comedy film for A24, which additionally options Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti.
She’s an activist, too. Her long-running animal adoption charity occasion, Broadway Barks, takes place in Shubert Alley on July 12.
After which she packs her luggage and excursions her live performance throughout the nation earlier than heading to Australia within the fall.
Peters is the image of a reliable showbiz workaholic, and arrives on the theater daily virtually 4 hours earlier than curtain.
“I have to practice my trumpet,” she mentioned.
