"Dreamgirls" Broadway Revival: How Long? — Page 3

Sorry, racism has nothing to do with majority.

rac·ism (rā'sĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.


Racism is an individual belief. Too many people with the same belief is not a good thing. People are inherently swayed.

In a culture where white dominance still reigns, there is no such thing as reverse racism in this instance, so get over it.

I'm african american, and that comment piseed ME off. Racism can and does come fron any race. Back on topic, Sadly, the number of classically trained MT stars is kind of fading off. (Along with the number of great roles for baritones, but that belongs in a different thread) There are plenty of no-names, with degrees in theater or even vocal performance that could do this musical. Musicals in which that is that case often die for that very reason.

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And we would all pay to see that!

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I see you don't understand what reverse racism is.

Besides, that's the whole point of DREAMGIRLS - especially of CADILLAC CAR.

Mr. Tuttle -
Before you start making assumptions about me, feel free to ask. You might be surprised by my qualifications.

And you should also learn to read. My posts are not lauding Jennifer Holliday. I am saying the role would be incredibly difficult to cast which is a fact. It is incredibly difficult to cast each and every time a major production is planned, including the recent film. It was incredibly difficult for Michael Bennett to stay with Holliday because they fought like cats. He sent her off to a fat farm and she came back ten pounds heavier. She gained so much weight over the production that towards the end of her stay with the production there were some slits in her costumes that were not originally planned by the costume designer. Bennett had some duty to keep her in the show--they could not find hardly anyone capable of replacing her and of course her performance had become legendary once the show opened. I don't think me saying, based on history and based on knowing the demands of the roll, that it will be incredibly hard to find an Effie is out of line or "stupid". The only other thing I ever said is that ANY revival these days brings the possibility of the score being "bubble-gummed". If you want to discuss this, we can start a new thread.

However, I am not a "young nobody". I have worked in and around this business for quite a while so you can find someone else to pick on. You could also feel free to actually read my posts and find out what I'm actually saying rather than be needlessly mean over something you don't even know.

Conclusion and sondhead's opinion: In regards to a Dreamgirls revival, Effie will be incredibly hard to cast as it has been throughout history (not undoable, but people are not packing the streets as some of you would have us believe) and I have fear of a "bubble-gummed" keyboard-filled re-orchestration.

Updated On: 12/26/06 at 07:50 PM

There are about a dozen ridiculous statements in this thread that I don't know where to begin to correct. Let's see --


"I don't think it would work again, for one reason, the music could never be put over by Broadway singers, even celebrities, and they'll never get pop singers to do it.

The film proves it, the music on the soundtrack is more real than any of the other recordings, someone finally listened to the OBC and said "No one would orchestrate, sing or play this music this whitely" and decided to make it real.

The soundtrack is the first time I've heard a Broadway score brought up to par for a film, realism-wise. Even Rent was a disappointment orchestrationwise, and I really enjoyed that film."


Well, the score to DREAMGIRLS is a Broadway score created by Broadway composers who wrote it in a contemporary pop/r&b mode. It wasn't "whitened" for Broadway -- it was WRITTEN FOR BROADWAY -- with orchestrations that fell well outside the mainstream for Broadway of the time and fell more in line with what pop and R&B fans of that era were used to hearing.

The show -- for the OBC, the national company, and the revival -- was cast mostly with actual r&b/gospel singers (several with music and concert careers), some of whom who had previous stage and acting experience, many of whom did not. But, with only a few exceptions, they were authentic-sounding r&b singers for the 1980s.

In terms of the authenticity or "realness" of the sound, the fact is that Holliday's recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" spent 20 weeks on the R&B charts in 1982, including 4 weeks at Number One, 7 weeks on the pop charts (peaking at #22), and won Holliday a Grammy for Best R&B Female Performance in 1983. They then released Holliday's "I Am Changing" as a follow-up single and it spent 10 weeks on the R&B charts, peaking at #29. Ben Harney and Sheryl Lee Ralph's "When I First Saw You" was also released as a single in the spring of 1983 and spent 6 weeks on the R&B Charts.

So, apparently R&B audiences found the sound sufficiently "real" and not too "white" to prevent the album from going platinum. Kindly name another cast album from the past 30 years that was deemed "real" enough to garner similar success on the r&b or pop charts.


"As for performers, I will say one reason they stuck with Jennifer Holliday in the original (it wasn't only because she was amazing.. she was a bee-itch to work with) is because she was literally the only person they could find capable of the roll. If you watch footage from other effie's that played the original production you'll see that there really was only Jennifer Holliday and Lillias White that could handle the part."

I've seen about a dozen Effies over the years (including most of the Effies from the original run and the revival) and that statement is ludicrous. Yes, Effie was always a hard role to cast, but Julia McGirt, Fuschia Walker, her sister Arnetia, Sheila Ellis, and Sharon Brown (just to name a few off the top of my head) all were first rate Effies, all were superior to White vocally, and all were much better acting-wise than Holliday.


"Jazzy -- But Jennifer Holliday had aspirations to be on Broadway and went and auditioned. The producers did not go peruse Houston area Gospel churches. How many Effie's are out there that can act and have aspirations to be on Broadway, enough to go through a difficult audition process."


Holliday did NOT have aspirations to be on Broadway when Jamie Rogers discovered her singing with her choir on Houston tv one Sunday morning back in 1979.

Rogers was in the road company of A CHORUS LINE when he happened to flip on the tv in his hotel one Sunday morning and was blown away by a then 18 year old Jennifer Yvette-Holliday. He immediately called his friend Vinnette Carroll who was back in New York having a hard time finding a replacement for Delores Hall as the lead singer in a proposed Broadway return engagement of her YOUR ARMS TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD which was then touring. Holliday was contacted, flown to New York where she auditioned and was cast on the spot.

Meanwhile Michael Bennett was supervising (not directing at that point) a workshop of a show then-called "Big Dreams" at his 890 Studios on Broadway & 19th. His lead Nell Carter had just gotten a sitcom (Gimme A Break) and was heading to LA. In the course of looking for her replacement, someone told him to check out this young gospel singer nightly ripping the roof off of the Ambassador theatre and that's how he found Holliday. HE went to her, not the other way around.

She was cast, the song "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was written FOR her and her voice (not the other way around) and she was later fired after a falling out with Bennett (mostly due to the fact that at that point Effie wasn't in Act Two of the show and he had promised her the lead role). But, she didn't beg to come back -- in fact he had to wine and dine her to get her to return after he realized how badly he missed her voice in the show. At the time, she said she didn't care at all about Broadway, that she'd already gotten interest from record labels and once she finished with YOUR ARMS, she told him that she was going to become the next Aretha Franklin. He put on the charm, took her out to fancy dinners, to her first Broadway shows (LENA HORNE THE LADY AND HER MUSIC was her first; again, she could care less about Broadway at that point -- even though she was starring in YOUR ARMS, until then she'd never even seen or heard a Broadway show), gave her a crash course in the history of musical theatre and how he could make her a star, and after promising that, yes, he would have Krieger and Eyen write her some new numbers for Act Two, she agreed to come back to the show. Later that year, DREAMGIRLS opened, she became the toast of Broadway and well, the rest is history (sort of......)


And as far as orchestrations or whatever being "whitened" or "bubblegummed" for a Broadway revival, anyone who knows John Breglio and his fanatical control over the Bennett estate knows that any changes in a Broadway revival of DREAMGIRLS would be minor to non-existent. Other than perhaps bringing back Harold Wheeler to do a tweak here or there of his original orchestration (just as Marvin Hamlisch did for the A CHORUS LINE revival), expect a 99% carbon copy of the production Bennett created in 1981 -- one whose sound was fully embraced by non-Broadway pop and R&B fans all around the country back in 1982.

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Updated On: 12/26/06 at 09:05 PM

>The film proves it, the music on the soundtrack is more real than any of the other recordings, someone finally listened to the OBC and said "No one would orchestrate, sing or play this music this whitely" and decided to make it real.<

An amazing statement, since Harold Wheeler, original Dreamgirls orchestrator, is African American.

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The blueprint of White's Effie is on the concert recording, but back in the 80s she had more range and her voice didn't crack as much. She acted it solidly (very feisty), took a few higher options in AIATY (I seem to recall that she used to go up to an A in "It's All Over") and did a more plaintive, slow-building take on "I Am Changing" (that she got from McGirt) than Holliday.

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RE: the Prince's Dreamgirls; I thought it was a solid hit. It extended twice.

Nova Payton surely has the talent to take this to the top, but would likely face stiff competition on Broadway. But this production was never intended to be anything but one of the Prince's most solid productions. Despite some dull moments, the main leads were all quite impressive. They re-created a scene at this year's Barrymore Awards in Oct. and Nova's "I'm Tellin You" was the winning performance.

Here is the BWW review: https://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=6443

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I don't remember her riffing so much 20 years ago (and you're right it does detract when overused). She was very reliable and straightforward in her performances back then. Some r&b/gospel singers fall into too much riffing when they've sung a particular song WAY too many times over the years -- I guess it's their way of making a song that they're tired of singing "fresh" and interesting to them -- though it can be annoying to those of us listening to them. Holliday has fallen into similar kinds of bad habits with too many mannerisms and too much melisma.

And I can recall being extremely disappointed seeing Stephanie Mills sing "Home" a few years back in which she never sang the melody straight one time during the entire song, and had so many riffs and improvs in it that you could barely recognize what the hell she was singing. I remember seeing her in THE WIZ as a kid and remembering how simple and powerful her rendition was, but I guess the fact that because she's sung it literally thousands of times in the past 30 years -- between playing Dorothy for several years, as well as in her own solo concerts in the last couple of decades -- she's probably bored to death of it by now.

The night of the concert, I think White's problem was a combination having sung AIATY too many times, along with what sounded to me like a bad case of nerves. She botched it in a way that I've never heard her before -- oversinging it to the point where she actually looked like she just ran out of ideas for it about halfway through when she would have been better off just keeping it as simple as possible -- and I bet that part of that was due to it being such a high profile event (right after 9/11) with so many major celebrities in attendance. She's a pro, but even pros have off-nights.

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Updated On: 12/27/06 at 03:05 AM

It would be fantastic to revive now

"And I can recall being extremely disappointed seeing Stephanie Mills sing "Home" a few years back in which she never sang the melody straight one time during the entire song, and had so many riffs and improvs in it that you could barely recognize what the hell she was singing. I remember seeing her in THE WIZ as a kid and remembering how simple and powerful her rendition was, but I guess the fact that because she's sung it literally thousands of times in the past 30 years -- between playing Dorothy for several years, as well as in her own solo concerts in the last couple of decades -- she's probably bored to death of it by now."

Ya, and Jennifer got progressively more strange with AIATY as time went on too. The Tony performance is pretty brilliant, but most of the recordings of her singing that song from then on are just.. too bizarre vocally for me anyways. I guess they have a certain odd diva charm.

I never meant to imply that any part of the original cast recording was "white" or "bubble-gum". It's one of my favorite albums and the production was phenominal. I actually really miss cast recordings being produced as "albums". The concept made for several really exciting and "raw" (for lack of a better word) recordings. My only fear is that a revival WOULD take some of the soul out of things.

But Margo, what you said couldn't be more true and is one of the first educated rebuttals I've seen in this thread (thankfully)--The estates involved here would not let much change here. I suppose they could take some life out if it were mixed or over-produced for album but a lot of that comes too from more modern sound recording techniques. Sometimes I hate how "pristine" new recordings can sound. I wish a lot more stuff were recorded in analog these days.

If anything, Wheeler proved in The Wiz that if any changes were made to the orchestration they would be for the better. Actually Wheeler proved with the movie of Dreamgirls. There are some really wonderful things going on with the way music is used in that film, especially orchestration wise. Also the mixing is just wonderful especially in the way it is used to really make And I Am Telling You build. Marvelous.

And I was thinking about it tonight as I was seeing the movie again.. Perhaps Hudson was cardboard in Whorehouse, but hadn't she only been with them the day of the performance? I'd probably be not at my best either.

It all comes back to.. I think Effie is the major problem with the possibility of a revival. First of all, I'm sure it'll be quite a while before it'll come together. The powers that be will surely want the movie to make as much $$ as possible before starting up a revival. I remember back when Evita came out there was buzz for a revival and even that Natalie Toro tour but it needed some time to make both ventures the most lucrative. Furthermore, they will need to take some time with the casting of Effie. Nothing short of an in-freaking-credible performance would pass after these others.