One interesting thing Karen said was that she got her first audition in NY within a day of arriving there, and four days later she replaced Joanne Worley in an off-B'way show (in 1960). She then stood by for Tammy Grimes in the road company of Molly Brown, and then took over the role. I then asked her how many times she went on for Miss Grimes while standing by - the answer? One. Which led the discussion where I wanted - the fact that in days of old (up until about twenty years ago) stars and leading players would have rather DIED than miss a performance and let their understudy go on. Now, it's all personal days, and people missing if their having sniffles, or PMS, or a headache, or they need to do a concert somewhere. It was unthinkable back then and frankly it should be unthinkable now. Miss Morrow told of being told she had to miss a performance (of Drood, I think) because they wanted to see how the understudy was. She didn't want to miss, and, in fact, hung out at the theater because she felt she should be going on. She was very frank and forthcoming - the other interesting discussion was belting now vs. classic belting by folks like her - the Susan Johnsons of the world. Karen doesn't consider what's done by the Idinas, etc. as belting at all. And she blames composers for pushing that sort of thing into higher and higher keys.
