One of the stories Seth Rudetsky tells in his latest Playbill column:
Emily confirmed that a story I had heard about the Broadway musical Jekyll And Hyde was true. It was Emily’s first Broadway show and she was Linda Eder’s understudy. Well, early on in the preview period, poor Linda lost her voice and couldn’t sing, but Emily wasn’t ready to go on because she hadn’t had any rehearsal. She knew her lines and all the songs, but she hadn’t learned any of the many fight scenes, which can be dangerous to perform if not rehearsed. Emily also didn’t have any costumes yet. So, it was decided that Linda would go on and speak her lines, but when she got to the songs, Emily would stand in the wings, sing into a microphone and Linda would lip synch. For real!
The audience came to the show and watched, but they weren’t told what was happening. How bizarre it must have been to see Linda moving her mouth and not understand why the sound sometimes didn’t match. The nice part is, at the end of the show, Linda Eder went to the wings and brought Emily out for a well-deserved bow.
More stories including one about Sebastian Arcelus playing Roger in Rent with his pants having fallen down, and one about Andrea McArdle changing the choreography in Annie because Henry "the Fonz" Winkler was in the audience.