Bernadette's Timeline

it, Bernadette ends playing Sally.


Playbill article, Jan 22, 2012 "Hey, L.A., We're Coming Your Way: Follies Ends Broadway Run Jan. 22"

Bernadette is nominated for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, for this role.

Posted by Jean; last updated 4/27/2012 at 11:26:55 AM ET by Jean. Edit

Theatre in a limited run. This is a transfer from the Kennedy Center.

The show opened in previews on Aug. 7, officially on Sept. 12.


Posted by Jean; last updated 8/11/2011 at 6:26:01 AM ET by Jean. Edit

Kennedy Center production of Sondheim's "Follies", from May 7 through June 19. The show officially opened on May 21.

Playbill article, May 7

Playbill article, May 21

Posted by Jean; last updated 1/22/2012 at 6:07:07 AM ET by Jean. Edit

Night Music as Desiree, (officially on August 1, 2010), replacing Catherine Zeta-Jones. The musical closes on January 9, 2011.

Her reviews, with a few exceptions, are raves.

New York Times review

New York Post

Review roundup from broadwayworld.com

BWW TV First Look (Video, 05:40)

Diva Talk (playbill.com, July 23, 2010)

Posted by Jean; last updated 12/28/2010 at 4:53:00 PM ET by Jean. Edit

did a benefit reading of Love Letters at New World Stages.

Playbill

Posted by Rose; last updated 10/21/2007 at 5:12:44 PM ET by Karen. Edit

& lyrics) and John Weidman's (book) musical play "Bounce" was presented in a private backers' reading at The Public Theater. Bernadette played the role of Mama Mizner.

playbill article

Posted by Karen; last updated 7/10/2006 at 7:32:12 AM ET by Jean. Edit

after 451 performances and 33 previews.

Photo link: Rose's Turn for the last time

Posted by Kevin; last updated 4/28/2006 at 11:56:04 PM ET by Jean. Edit

Bernadette plays "Rose", mother of two aspiring performers.

(The play started in previews on Mar 31, 2003.)

Photo link: Bernadette as "Rose" and stage daughter Tammy Blanchard as "Louise"

Posted by Rose; last updated 6/11/2006 at 7:00:48 AM ET by Jean. Edit

Theatre on Broadway. It closed Sept 1, 2001 after 1,046 performances. Bernadette played the role of Annie Oakley. "Annie" opened in previews out-of-town at the Kennedy Center in late December 1998.

Photo link: Annie Get Your Gun playbill

Posted by Karen; last updated 9/8/2006 at 6:19:34 PM ET by Kevin. Edit

on its 10th anniversary, at the Broadway Theatre for 2 performances, as a benefit for Friends In Deed and God's Love We Deliver. Most of the original cast participated.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/23/2006 at 6:41:44 PM ET by Karen. Edit

of Kander & Ebb's musical version of Thornton Wilder's play The Skin Of Our Teeth. Other participants included James Naughton and Debra Monk, under the direction of Jerry Zaks. She played the role of Sabina. This was an early version of the musical later entitled Over And Over, which opened in 1999 but never made it to Broadway.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/8/2006 at 7:47:05 PM ET. Edit

two performances April 15 & 16 at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills as a benefit for California AIDS Ride 3. Bernadette played the roles of Judy Denmark and Ginger Del Marco.

Posted by Karen; last updated 6/3/2006 at 5:46:34 PM ET by Karen. Edit

form at Carnegie Hall as a benefit for GMHC. Bernadette played the role of Nurse Fay Apple. The performance was recorded and released on CD by Columbia.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/21/2006 at 10:52:51 AM ET by Karen. Edit

in concert form on its 10th anniversary, at the St James Theatre as a benefit for Friends In Deed. Most of the original cast participated.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/23/2006 at 6:41:19 PM ET by Karen. Edit

It closed Aug 15 after 188 performances. Bernadette played the role of Paula.

Posted by Karen; last updated 2/26/2008 at 4:57:05 PM ET by Alexa. Edit

Theatre. It closed Sept 3, 1989 after 804 performances. Bernadette played the role of the Witch.

Photo link: after the transformation

(Bernadette left the show on March 30, 1988, due to a prior comittment to film "Slaves of New York".)

Posted by Karen; last updated 3/3/2007 at 8:01:17 AM ET by Jean. Edit

It closed Nov 8, 1986 after 474 performances. Bernadette played the role of Emma.

Bernadette left the show on October 4, 1986.

Photo link: Picture

Posted by Karen; last updated 3/3/2007 at 2:33:06 PM ET by Jean. Edit

the Booth Theatre. It closed Oct 18, 1985 after 604 performances. Bernadette played the roles of Dot and Marie. She left the show on February 24, 1985.

Photo link: Bernadette and Mandy Patinkin

Posted by Karen; last updated 3/3/2007 at 2:29:05 PM ET by Jean. Edit

Park with George opened at Playwrights Horizons and closed July 31 after a limited run of 25 performances. The show was one-act for all but the final three performances, and was substantially different from the later Broadway production. Bernadette played the role of Dot, and in the second act the role of Annette.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/14/2006 at 11:59:19 PM ET by Karen. Edit

Club. It closed March 28 after a limited run of 56 performances. Bernadette played the role of Sally opposite Christine Baranski as Marsha.

Photo link: Peters and Baranski as "Sally and Marsha"

Bernadette was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (the listing shows her as in a Musical performance):

Drama Desk

Posted by Karen; last updated 1/26/2007 at 7:47:09 AM ET by Jean. Edit

It closed Nov 30 after 65 performances. Bernadette played the role of Mabel Normand in this Jerry Herman musical directed by Gower Champion.

Photo link: Lisa Kirk, Robert Preston, and Bernadette

Photo link: Bernadette and cast dancing

Posted by Karen; last updated 10/16/2006 at 6:45:25 PM ET by Jean. Edit

this time at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ. It was a limited engagement which ran from Jan 24 to Feb 18.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/21/2006 at 9:22:09 PM ET. Edit

Guild. Bernadette played the role of Dorine in the classic Moliere comedy. Others in the cast included Richard Kiley, Kurt Kasznar, and Jobeth Williams.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/16/2006 at 10:45:51 PM ET by Karen. Edit

This revival of the Leonard Bernstein/Comden & Green musical closed Jan 1, 1972 after 73 performances. Bernadette played the role of Hildy.




Photo link: On The Town poster

Posted by Karen; last updated 9/8/2006 at 6:22:33 PM ET by Kevin. Edit

stock circuit in the summer of 1971 with the pre-Broadway tour of Al Carmine's musical, W.C., with Mickey Rooney. She played the role of Carlotta Monti. The show didn't make it to Broadway.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/23/2006 at 12:12:29 AM ET by Karen. Edit

Club Theatre. It closed March 28 after 4 performances. Bernadette played the role of Consuelo.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/15/2006 at 2:15:56 PM ET. Edit

It closed the same night after 1 performance and 12 previews. Bernadette played the role of Gelsomina.

Reviews of the show were overwhelmingly negative, with some reviewers singling Bernadette out for praise (while some just hated everything about the show). Clive Barnes, writing for The New York Times, praised her performance enormously, stating, "I hope that Peters stays around a bit with this-in any case I think she'll be back." (Suskin, More Opening Nights on Broadway, p. 523).

Photo link: Bernadette in LaStrada


Posted by Karen; last updated 10/24/2006 at 8:23:48 AM ET by Jean. Edit

Theatre. It closed May 10, 1970 after 575 performances. Bernadette played the role of Ruby.

Photo link: Bernadette & cast

Photo link: Bernadette and some of the cast
Bernadette received a Drama Desk Award ("Outstanding Performer, 1968-69):

Drama Desk

Posted by Karen; last updated 1/26/2007 at 7:44:29 AM ET by Jean. Edit

the unsuccessful pre-Broadway try out of this musical when it opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, but her part was written out of the show almost immediately. It starred Beatrice Arthur and folded on the road at the Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore on Oct 19.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/23/2006 at 1:30:56 AM ET. Edit

closed April 26, 1969 after 433 performances. Bernadette played the role of Josie Cohan. This was the show where she first met lifelong friend Joel Grey who starred in the title role of George M Cohan.

Steven Suskin provides a brief but interesting commentary on the show in his More Opening Nights on Broadway (p. 323-324), in light of this very patriotic show opening during the height of the Vietnam War (several chorus members balked at waving the American flag during the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" number) and just two weeks before Hair opened.

Photo link: George M! Playbill

Photo link: Joel & Bernadette

Posted by Karen; last updated 10/16/2006 at 4:58:43 PM ET by Jean. Edit

Theatre. It closed Jan 24, 1970 after 931 performances. Bernadette played the role of Alice.

This was the first of two musicals in which Bernadette appeared that spoofed some aspect of Hollywood. Curley McDimple was a spoof of Shirley Temple movies. Bayn Johnson played Curley (the Shirley Temple character).

Link to a synopsis of the show:

scroll to the bottom



Photo link: Bernadette and Bayn Johnson

Posted by Karen; last updated 10/17/2006 at 11:11:06 AM ET by Jean. Edit

It closed the same night after 1 performance and 5 previews. Bernadette played the role of Bettina. This show was her official Broadway debut. Others in the cast included Sada Thompson, James Broderick, and Pat Hingle.

A book documenting the production of the show, On Stage: The Making Of A Broadway Play, by Susan Jacobs was published by Knopf in 1972.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/6/2006 at 12:33:01 PM ET by Karen. Edit

Wilson's musical The Boy Friend at the Wedgewood Dinner Theatre in Glen Cove, Long Island.

This was probably some time in 1967, but further information and exact dates still needed.

Posted by Karen; last updated 6/3/2006 at 9:31:40 PM ET. Edit

Booth Theatre. It closed May 20 after 4 performances. Bernadette was standby for the role of Leslie (played by Heather North). Others in the cast included Alan Young, Marjorie Lord, and Russell Nype.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/14/2006 at 12:37:23 PM ET by Karen. Edit

Jan 22, 1967 after 32 performances. Bernadette played the role of Cinderella. The show was produced by Thomas Hammond, who then became her manager, and written by cabaret singer/pianist William Roy, who later worked as Bernadette's music director in the 1970s.

Photo link: Bernadette and cast

Posted by Karen; last updated 10/17/2006 at 11:12:02 AM ET by Jean. Edit

in New Hope, PA. It closed July 9 after a limited run of 23 performances. Bernadette played the role of Jenny. Apparently, she interrupted her run in Dames At Sea to take this summer stock engagement. Others in the cast included Robert Alda and Lisa Kirk.

Photo link: program from Riverwind

Posted by Karen; last updated 10/28/2006 at 3:09:40 PM ET by Jean. Edit

incarnation at the Caffe Cino. It ran for about sixteen weeks. It was directed by Robert Dahdah, who later wrote Curley McDimple. Bernadette played the role of Ruby, which she reprised two years later in the off-Broadway production.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/23/2006 at 12:29:14 AM ET by Karen. Edit

the Mt Gretna Playhouse in Lebanon County, Pa. She played the roles of Leisl in The Sound Of Music and Jenny in Riverwind.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/15/2006 at 11:13:42 AM ET. Edit

of Dainty June, with Betty Hutton as Rose, in a production that was staged in Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and in Ohio on the Kenley circuit in Warren and Columbus.

Posted by Karen; last updated 4/21/2006 at 9:16:16 PM ET. Edit

one of the Hollywood Blondes (among other small parts) while understudying the role of Dainty June in the second National tour of "Gypsy". She famously met her music director and friend, Marvin Laird, on this tour. The tour starred Mary McCarty as Rose, and opened Sept 14 at the Shubert Theatre in Detroit before moving on to the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia on Nov 13. It also played in Chicago, before closing at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland on Jan 20, 1962.

Photo link: Picture

Posted by Jean; last updated 4/21/2006 at 9:34:48 PM ET by Karen. Edit

Hawaiian Girl in a summer Las Vegas production of Gypsy, just prior to joining the second national tour that fall. The production starred Mitzi Green as Rose, and opened at the Lambertville Music Circus in New Jersey before moving on to Las Vegas. Photo link: Bernadette & Mother On Tour

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/16/2006 at 10:35:17 PM ET by Karen. Edit

Center. This revival of the Frank Loesser musical closed Feb 22 after a limited run of 16 performances. Bernadette played the role of Tessie.

Posted by Karen; last updated 5/14/2006 at 12:29:49 PM ET by Karen. Edit

in the unsuccessful pre-Broadway try-out of this comedy produced and directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Kim Hunter and James Daly. It opened on January 27, 1958 at the Shubert Theatre in Washington DC and closed on February 1, 1958 in Washington (it apparently did not go to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton as originally planned).

EDIT: In contradiction, according to Foster Hirsch's 2007 biography of Otto Preminger, the play opened January 23 and closed February 1 in Princeton and did not go to Washington.

Posted by Karen; last updated 12/30/2007 at 6:54:55 PM ET by Karen. Edit