“Rosalie, get down!”

It’s just past lunchtime at Bernadette Peters’ New York City home, and the legendary actress and singer has her hands full with a pair of rowdy dogs.

Charlie, a 3-year-old wirehair pointer-Labradoodle mix, is Peters’ older pooch. His younger sister, Rosalie, celebrated her first birthday in October, so she’s still a bit of a puppy.

Bernadette Peters in Concert comes to the Lied Center on March 24

“At home, she listens to me right away, but outside on the street, she’s nearly like a bulldog,” Peters says of her taupe-colored, freckled pit bull. “She’s bullheaded, like, ‘OK, we’re going out. I’m in charge, I’m in front.'”

Though Peters, a three-time Tony Award winner and one-time Golden Globe recipient, doesn’t seem to mind too much.

“I don’t know why, but I’ve always had this great love of animals,” says Peters, who, along with her friend Mary Tyler Moore, co-founded Broadway Barks in 1999. The annual charity event promotes the adoption of dogs and cats in the New York City area. “My passion is to help companion animals find the homes where they belong.”

On Tuesday evening, Peters will perform a mix of “standards” — from Stephen Sondheim, to Rodgers and Hammerstein, to Peggy Lee’s slinky “Fever,” to “When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio” — at the Lied Center, 1600 Stewart Drive.

This July 8, 2013, photo shows actress Bernadette Peters with Chili, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, at the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition in the Williamsburg section of the Brooklyn borough of New York. Peters co-founded Broadway Barks dog and cat adoption event in 1999 along with Mary Tyler Moore.

Before she hits the stage that night, the Lied Center will honor Peters’ philanthropic work by “going to the dogs.” From 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., visitors can meet adoptable dogs from the Lawrence Humane Society in the venue’s lobby. The Lied Center is also sharing local adoption stories on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the days leading up to the performance.

But in talking over the phone with Peters last Thursday, the whole arrangement seems to be a surprise to the performer, who sweetly asked, “Are they going to bring them [the dogs] out on stage?”

It’s something she used to do with her beloved Kramer, a Briard mix who passed away at age 16 in 2012.

“I’d take him on stage and he’d just run around,” Peters says of her canine pal. “He loved audiences, he loved applause, he’d talk to the audience. He was a real show dog.”

Kramer reminded her a bit of Hollywood legend John Barrymore (“He probably acted like a dog in real life, so he had to come back as a dog,” Peters jokes) and the titular tramp from “Lady and the Tramp” (“I’d always dreamed of having a dog that looked like that my whole life,” she says of the 1955 Disney cartoon).

The shaggy pooch later inspired a children’s book, “Broadway Barks,” published in 2008. Peters’ later dogs spurred 2010’s “Stella is a Star,” about a pit bull who dreams of becoming a piggy ballerina, and an upcoming book about Charlie’s adoption into the family.

That last one should come out this year, says Peters, who recently finished her first season as Gloria, the chairwoman of a New York City symphony board, in Amazon Prime’s “Mozart in the Jungle.” She’s signed on for a second season of the series, which starts shooting in August.

Until then, she’s happy to sing for live audiences. After appearing in Lawrence, she’ll take a few weeks off and then play a three-night gig with the Nashville Symphony.

Peters, it turns out, is especially fond of Kansas. She shot her first film, 1973’s “Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies,” near Hutchinson.

When asked to describe the difference between audiences in the Sunflower State and those on Broadway, Peters offers a diplomatic answer.

“Oh, audiences across the country have been so wonderful and sweet to me,” she says.

Before Peters can offer up specifics, her attention turns to one of her dogs. Rosalie is acting up again.

A (dog) mother’s work is never done.