Lainie Kazan - Have I Stayed too Long at the Fair?

Well she tells the story in her act.
She was Babs understudy for Funny Girl and she was never able to go on. Until one day Babs was sick. Yeah !!!! Lanie called everyone on her list that she had in her pocket. She was getting ready in Babs dressing room her friends , family and so on was in the house and just when it was time for curtain who walks in but Barbra. Well she didn't get to go on . Well the producer did let her finally go on one time at a Wednesday Matinee. She was able to call her list again . But she only went on once.

That was the short version of the story. If she is ever in your town go and see her. She comes to SF once a year.
~ Patrick O Sanchez from the web:

Kazan made her Broadway debut in The Happiest Girl in the World in 1961, followed by Bravo Giovanni (1962). She served as understudy to Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, finally getting to go on eighteen months into the run when the star was felled by a serious throat problem. Coincidentally, both had attended the same high school, Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York. Kazan's mother alerted the press and, encouraged by rave reviews for her performance, she quit the show and set out to establish herself in a singing career.
As her popularity increased, Kazan posed for a spread in the October 1970 issue of Playboy. Her photographs inspired the look of Jack Kirby's DC Comics superheroine Big Barda.

Have I Stayed too Long at the Fair?