First of all, people are at rehearsals. Understudies watch. If they're in the show, they may be onstage during the very scenes in which the character they understudy is on. In the case of Manoel Feliciano, he was an Apostle and so would have been onstage a lot with Judas.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Ann Harada went on as Gertrude McFuzz when she wasn't even the understudy and had never had a rehearsal. In that case, she was only an understudy, she had no role in the show, and she'd been watching the show from out front.
The stories about the first night that Paul Lipson went on for Mostel as Tevye in D.C. are that the cast had to sort of push him around the stage and whisper lines to him. And he'd actually been standing in for Mostel at some rehearsals, but he wasn't at all ready. Still, somehow he got through it, and was even well received by the audience. Harnick tells of overhearing a woman walking out saying, "Well, Zero couldn't be better than him!"
In opera, there are so many stories of singers who've done roles in other productions showing up just in time to get ready but with no time for any rehearsal. If they're lucky, they may sort of get walked through some generalized blocking at each intermission.
Of course, you usually can't get away with that in a Broadway musical, especially nowadays.
Some of the stories, like the ones about Gloria Wills and Susan Johnson, may be a bit exaggerated. But, again, if you're in a show, you're watching. Even if you don't understudy the role, you often have a general sense of the blocking for someone.
Speaking of which, Shirley MacLaine has always said that she had never had a rehearsal the first time she went on. Presumably, she'd watched a lot. And she got there late for half-hour. I think she's told the story slightly differently on different occasions but I think she always says that she'd never had a rehearsal and she got there late. Of course, who knows if that's exactly true? But she probably had at most one rehearsal because it had just opened. And perhaps she really never had one. And that's a major dance role.
People do manage these things. They have managed them many times in the history of the theatre. I know people who've been in shows where people went on in leading roles without ever having had a rehearsal. It really does happen.
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