Exclusive | Back on Broadway, Bernadette Peters misses her friend Stephen Sondheim: Ive had dreams about him

Not a day goes by that Bernadette Peters doesn’t miss her old friend Stephen Sondheim.“I do think of him every day,” she told 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 back on Broadway this season after seven years away, alongside Lea Salonga and 15 others in a wonderful revue of the late composer’s work called “Old Friends.” The audience at the Samuel J.Friedman Theatre is especially rapt and weepy whenever the beloved actress takes the stage, because she played such a vital role in bringing these timeless songs to life. Peters, 77, originated some of the great Sondheim parts: the rapping Witch in 1986’s “Into the Woods” and model 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.” But the collaboration — some have called her his “muse” — all started with the out-there George Seurat musical “Sunday.” “When I first met him, he made me nervous,” Peters said of Sondheim, who’d already delivered notoriously tricky shows such as “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 soon went away, though.“He was very kind to performers,” she said.Peters’ favorite memories of Sondheim, who died in 2021, were when he’d come back to her dressing room and give 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 experience, which got her and her friend 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�...