Is it a coincidence that both the Broadway and Hollywood versions of “Dreamgirls” are celebrating anniversaries this year? Writer-director Bill Condon’s movie adaptation starring Beyoncé, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and Oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson opened on Christmas Day, 2006. That was 20 years ago!
But if you really want to feel old about an anniversary, the Broadway version of Dreamgirls opened at the Imperial Theatre on December 20, 1981. That makes it—and you—45 years older than you were in 1981. Don’t feel bad; I’m decrepit old, too. I saw the original production in 1982. It was a gift for my eighth-grade graduation, and the first truly “mature” show I saw on Broadway.
I also saw the movie version on its opening weekend. Knowing Condon’s love of Broadway musicals (he also wrote the screenplay for the movie version of “Chicago”), I can assume that releasing his movie near the 25th anniversary of the musical was no accident. Perhaps this dual anniversary was intentional after all.
Looking back, I realize that Dreamgirls was the final show in a decade-long streak of musicals designed to get Black folks to visit the Great White Way. The year of my birth, 1970, brought Purlie, a musical based on Ossie Davis’ “Purlie Victorious” to the stage with Melba Moore and Cleavon Little. Three years later, a musical based on A Raisin in the Sun (called simply Raisin) opened with “Good Times” star Ralph Carter in the cast.
Between those two, Melvin Van Peebles created Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death and Don’t Play Us Cheap!. And then, of course, there was The Wiz, the first musical I ever saw on Broadway. I was 6, and Mabel King’s wicked witch scared the hell out of me. Six years later, Dreamgirls would also scare the hell out of me for a different reason. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
So many of these shows were nominated for Tonys. In 1981 alone, the Tony Awards honored The Wiz‘s scarecrow, Hinton Battle, for his featured role in the Duke Ellington revue, Sophisticated Ladies. The show was also up for Best Musical and had nominations for Gregory Hines and Phyllis Hyman.
Ellington’s contemporary, Lena Horne, received a special Tony in 1981 as well, for her one-woman show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. She was fresh off the movie version of The Wiz, the most awarded all-Black Broadway musical before Dreamgirls exploded into the stratosphere. Horne sang one of The Wiz‘s 11 o’clock numbers, “If You Believe,” on the Tonys.
Growing up in the New York City area in the 1970s and early 1980s, I was bombarded with TV and radio commercials for musicals populated by Black faces. Ads for The Wiz were plentiful back in 1975. Nell Carter, who was originally cast as Effie White in Dreamgirls, was on my TV in 1978 singing Fats Waller songs from “Ain’t Misbehavin’” to a Tony-winning tee.
Two years later, Effie White herself, Jennifer Holliday, was in commercials for the revival of Your Arms Too Short To Box With God. She roared out the lyric “yo’ arms too short to box with GAWWWWWW-AWWWD!” My cousins and I would mimic this to the point of driving my aunties crazy. Holliday’s take on the word “God” sounded as if she were being struck by lightning. That’s what you get for throwing haymakers at the Lord!
Alas, these digressions have me “steppin’ to the bad side.” This is supposed to be about Dreamgirls. So, let me set the stage: it’s June 6, 1982. Dreamgirls just won six of the thirteen Tonys it was nominated for, losing Best Musical to Nine. Jennifer Holliday won the Tony over her fellow nominee, Sheryl Lee Ralph. Ralph played Deena Jones, so this was a bit of poetic justice for the character of Effie.
Effie Melody White also worked her way into the zeitgeist courtesy of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” the song that ends Act 1. It’s the musical’s 11 o’clock number, but it actually showed up around 9:15. When released as a single, the song was a number one hit for Holliday, earning her a Grammy and a number one spot on the Billboard R&B chart.
The song that launched a thousand failed attempts at amateur night on “Showtime at the Apollo” was everywhere in 1982–and I was damn near sick of it! Taken out of context from the show, the vinyl version starts in media res with that awkward conjunction in that first line. From there, Holliday takes the listener to church, her gospel-inflected growl breaking the heart while touching the soul. She was singing about grown folks’ business, which is why I didn’t get the song at 12 years old.
And I am telling you, I heard this song 50-11 bazillion times on the radio, and on record. Who didn’t have a 45 of this torch song? You know when I didn’t get to hear it? When I went to see Dreamgirls on Broadway.
My predominantly Black audience was there for one reason only: that song! When Effie made her appearance, the show had to stop for a second because of all the applause. But that was nothing compared to the moment when Holliday’s Effie turns to Ben Harney’s Berry Gordy clone, Curtis Taylor Jr., and sings that opening line.
“And I am telling you, I’m not going!”
That was the only lyric I heard in the entire musical number. And this is not a quiet song, folks. My audience went berserk, jumping up, clapping, and stomping their feet. The building literally rattled. Even my aunt and uncle were applauding as if their lives depended on it. You could not hear a note above that rapturous reaction. I was terrified! I thought the theater was going to collapse.
Fast-forward 24 years to me watching “Dreamgirls” in another theater, the Loews Lincoln Square 13. This time, it was the movie version playing 23 blocks north of where I saw it live. Effie White was changing into another Jennifer, Jennifer Hudson. My predominantly Black audience was there to see Beyoncé and Ed-DEE, who should have won the Oscar for his performance as James Thunder Early. Some of the older folks gasped when Loretta Devine, Broadway’s original Lorrell, made a cameo appearance.
I can tell you that the people at my screening were not there for the former American Idol contestant who dared to stand in Jennifer Holliday’s shadow. The folks I knew at home had a “Not my Effie!” response to Hudson’s casting, which might explain why my movie theater audience was muted in their reaction to her performance for a while.
Then Hudson sang that damn song to Jamie Foxx. You could hear a pin drop.
It’s ironic that I could hear this version, but I think the audience was feeling Hudson out to see where she’d go. Foxx exits the scene, leaving Condon to focus on her performance. The sequence doesn’t capture the lightning in a bottle that live theater generates every night, but I bet the song convinced any undecided Academy voter to cast their vote for Hudson when she got nominated for the Oscar a few months later. (She won.)
After Hudson belted out the final note to the song that has endured for 45 years, my theater audience blew up! “Good Lord!” some guy yelled from behind me. After that, everyone was with Hudson. She had us rooting for this Effie. People even cheered for her “introducing” credit at the end of the movie.
The funniest thing about my experience with the cinematic version of “Dreamgirls” is that a new song, “Listen,” was added because Beyoncé was the star. My audience clearly saw through this attempt to give Deena Jones her own “And I’m Telling You I AM Going” number, meeting it with stone silence. It’s why I jokingly refer to Condon’s “Dreamgirls” as “Beyoncé’s Folly,” because despite “Listen” becoming a hit and receiving a questionable Oscar nomination, it was proof once again that Effie was always better than Deena.
