The optimal control for vibration suppression of a plate by distributed piezoelectric actuators is considered. A performance index in the form of a weighted quadratic functional of the dynamic response of a rectangular simply supported plate will be minimized within a prescribed time duration using piezoelectric patches (voltages). The minimization of the performance index over these voltages is subject to the equation of motion governing the plate's structural vibration and a set of initial and boundary conditions. The solution method is a combination of modal space expansion and direct state parameterization. Modal space expansion will transform the optimal control of a distributed parameter system into the optimal control of a lumped parameter system. Using Legendre wavelets, the quadratic optimization problem is transformed into a mathematical programming problem, where the objective is to minimize a set of unknown coefficients to obtain the optimal trajectory and the optimal control. Numerical examples will be provided to illustrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method.