 At age 13 , Peters appeared as one of the " Hollywood Blondes " and was an understudy for " Dainty June " in the second national tour of Gypsy . During this tour , Peters first met her long @-@ time accompanist , conductor and arranger Marvin Laird , who was the assistant conductor for the tour . Laird recalled , " I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought , ' God that 's a big voice out of that little girl , ' " The next summer , she played Dainty June in summer stock , and in 1962 she recorded her first single . In 1964 , she played Liesl in The Sound of Music and Jenny in Riverwind in summer stock at the Mt . Gretna Playhouse ( Pennsylvania ) , and Riverwind again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1966 . Upon graduation from high school , she started working steadily , appearing Off @-@ Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend ( 1966 ) and Curley <unk> ( 1967 ) and as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip ( 1967 ) . She made her Broadway debut in Johnny No @-@ Trump in 1967 , and next appeared as George M. Cohan 's sister Josie opposite Joel Grey in George M ! ( 1968 ) , winning the Theatre World Award . 
