Name Patricia Peterson | Role Theater Actress | |
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Parents Edwin J. Peterson, Anna Peterson | ||
Patricia Ben Peterson (born c. 1959) an American Broadway and regional theater actress and geriatric social worker.
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Personal life
Peterson was born in Portland, Oregon, to Portland attorney Edwin and Anna Peterson. Her father was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court in 1979, and served as its 39th Chief Justice from 1983 to 1991. Both he and his wife Anna were, and continue to be active supporters of the performing arts: Justice Peterson's undergraduate degree was in music, and, after moving to Salem to join the Supreme Court, he played the French Horn as a member of the Salem Pops Orchestra. Anna Peterson has served as mayor of Salem, Oregon since 2011.
Career
In the fall of 2003, while still in demand as a performer, but finding that performing was no longer the source of fulfillment it had been for her, she returned to school for two years to earn her Master's in geriatric social work.
She lives in New York City, and works as a geriatric social worker at the Lillian Booth Home, a facility for retired and incapacitated former theater workers in Englewood, New Jersey, run by The Actor's Fund. In July 2007, she was profiled in a New York Times article on continuing education and mid-life career changes.