She has also acted in television shows such as Ally McBeal, Smash (2012–2013), Mozart in the Jungle (2014–2018), The Good Fight (2017–2018), Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (2020–2021) and High Desert (2023).

[8] She made her professional stage debut the same month in This Is Goggle, a comedy directed by Otto Preminger that closed during out-of-town tryouts before reaching New York.

[14][15][16] Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend (1966) and Curley McDimple (1967)[11] and as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip (1967).

[18][19][20] Peters had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles—Gelsomina in the 1969 musical version of the Italian film of the same name, La Strada (for which she won good reviews but the show closed after one performance) and Hildy in a revival of On the Town (1971), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination.

[23] Peters starred opposite Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979) in a role that he wrote for her, and again in Pennies from Heaven (1981), for which she won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical.

Peters has also appeared in such television films as The Last Best Year (1990), Cinderella (1997; receiving a nomination for the "Golden Satellite Award" for her role), and as Circe in the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey (2001).

Among many glowing notices, critic Lloyd Rose of The Washington Post commented: "[Peters] banishes all thoughts of Ethel Merman about two bars into her first number, 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly.'

[citation needed] Peters was also nominated for a 2003 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, for her work in the 2002 television film Bobbie's Girl.

Ben Brantley in The New York Times wrote, "Working against type and expectation under the direction of Sam Mendes, Ms. Peters has created the most complex and compelling portrait of her long career, and she has done this in ways that deviate radically from the Merman blueprint.

Andrew Gans of Playbill wrote, "Peters is able to choose from an expansive emotional palette to color the character, and her performance... is moving, humorous and ultimately spirit-raising".

She appeared as the sharp-tongued sister of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) on the penultimate episode of the NBC series Will & Grace, "Whatever Happened to Baby Gin?"

[70] In making the announcement for this award, the Tony official site noted "With a rich generosity of spirit, Bernadette Peters' devotion to charitable causes is perhaps only outweighed by her much fêted dedication to performing. ...

[72] Peters first appeared in the NBC series Smash in the March 2012 episode "The Workshop", as Leigh Conroy, Ivy's mother, a retired Broadway star, who feels competitive because of her daughter's blossoming career.

[83] Jesse Green, in his review in New York Magazine's Vulture site, commented: "[W]hat a wrenching (and funny) actress Peters remains, not on top of her voice but through it.

"[84] From 2014 to 2018, Peters played Gloria Windsor, the chairwoman of the orchestra board in Mozart in the Jungle, a web video series by Amazon Studios based on Blair Tindall's memoir of the same name.

[98] Peters made her West End debut alongside Lea Salonga in the tribute revue Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, running at the Gielgud Theatre from September 2023 to January 2024.

Her album has already spawned the hit single "Gee Whiz," a laid-back, doo-wop version ... that makes Peters' piping, little-girl voice seem almost like a cutesy novelty.

In fact, the whole second half of Bernadette Peters is just about perfect, from the star's semi-C&W rendition of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Pearl's a Singer" to a wistful recap of Harry Warren and Mark Gordon's romantic "You'll Never Know."

[109]Her next solo album, Now Playing (1981), featured songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch, and Stephen Sondheim (for example, "Broadway Baby").

In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy Award for her best-selling album, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, which includes popular songs by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Lyle Lovett, Hank Williams, Sam Cooke and Billy Joel, as well as Broadway classics by Leonard Bernstein and Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Performing material whose music borders on kitsch and whose lyrics and story suggest a verbose soap opera, Miss Peters nevertheless projects an astounding emotional generosity and conviction.

[124] In a review of her 2002 Radio City Music Hall concert, Stephen Holden of The New York Times described Peters as "the peaches-and-cream embodiment of an ageless storybook princess... inside a giant soap bubble floating toward heaven.

Holden, reviewing this concert, noted, "Even while swiveling across the stage of Avery Fisher Hall like a voluptuous Botticelli Venus in Bob Mackie spangles... she radiated a preternatural innocence.... For the eternal child in all of us, she evokes a surrogate childhood playmate".

The reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: "Perhaps it is a matter of personality as much as voice: a natural warmth and an instinct for never exaggerating the emotional content of a song.

[139] Peters sings four songs on the CD accompanying a 2005 children's picture book Dewey Doo-it Helps Owlie Fly Again, the proceeds of which benefit the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

[140][141] To support Broadway Barks, the animal adoption charity that she co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, Peters has written three children's books, illustrated by Liz Murphy.

[161] In 2008, she was one of the participants in a fund-raiser for the Westport Country Playhouse,[162] and in the opening ceremony and dedication of the renovated TKTS discount ticket booth in Times Square.

A review in The Arts Desk read: "The tradition of bringing over a Broadway baby or two ... presumably explained a late appearance by a still-luminous Bernadette Peters, who reached the very high note at the end of 'Losing My Mind' often not attempted by interpreters of that particular Sondheim song.

[187] Other honors include the Sarah Siddons Award for outstanding performance in a Chicago theatrical production (1994 for The Goodbye Girl);[188] the American Theatre Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City (1996), as the youngest person so honored;[189] The Actors' Fund Artistic Achievement Medal (1999);[190] an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University (2002);[191] the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2002[192] and the National Dance Institute 2009 Artistic Honoree.

[194] In 2012, New Dramatists, an organization that supports beginning playwrights, presented Peters with their Lifetime Achievement Award, stating: "She has brought a new sound into the theatre and continues to do so, in surprising and miraculous ways.