Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls is a two-act musical with music by Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tom Eyen. It follows three young Black singers from Chicago from an amateur contest in 1962 to pop stardom in the 1970s, and weighs what the climb costs them. Along the way it looks at Black artists trying to cross over to white pop audiences, and at women making their way in a record business run by men.

The story is original rather than adapted from a book or film. Its trio is loosely modeled on 1960s girl groups such as The Supremes and The Shirelles, though the creators publicly denied that they were telling the Supremes' story.

Michael Bennett first staged the show on Broadway in 1981, and it won six Tony Awards. The planned revival is a new production directed and choreographed by Camille A. Brown, the first Broadway run of Dreamgirls not based on Bennett's staging. As of October 2026, no theater, dates or cast have been announced.

The first act opens at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1962. The Dreamettes, a teenage trio from Chicago, sing a song written by C.C., the brother of their lead singer, Effie White; Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson complete the group. They lose, but Curtis Taylor Jr., a car salesman with big ambitions, becomes their manager and gets them work singing backup for the R&B star Jimmy Early.

Curtis steers Jimmy and the girls toward the white pop market. When a white group's cover outsells their single, he buys radio airplay through payola, and he edges out Marty Madison, Jimmy's original manager. Effie and Curtis become a couple, while Jimmy, who is married, begins an affair with Lorrell.

Next, Curtis relaunches the trio as the Dreams, with a sleeker pop image and Deena in front of Effie as lead singer. Effie grows resentful and unreliable and suspects that Curtis and Deena are involved. By 1967 the group is playing Las Vegas as Deena Jones and the Dreams, Curtis brings in Michelle Morris to take Effie's place, and the first act builds to Effie refusing to be pushed aside in "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going."

The second act jumps to 1972. The Dreams are the country's top girl group, Deena has married Curtis, and Jimmy's career is stalling. Back in Chicago, Effie is a struggling single mother who, with Marty as her manager, rebuilds her confidence. Deena wants to move into acting, and C.C. resents Curtis for reworking his ballad "One Night Only" into a commercial sound. After Jimmy falls apart on stage at a political fundraiser and tears into a wild funk number, Curtis fires him and Lorrell ends the affair. Reconciled with C.C., Effie records "One Night Only" as a ballad, and Curtis rushes out a Dreams version and pays to bury hers.

Krieger and Eyen built much of the score from musical sequences woven into the action rather than from separate songs. For the original Broadway cast album, those sequences were broken into individual tracks, and about half of the score was left off.

Since the characters are singers by trade, many numbers are shows within the show. Three other acts, the Stepp Sisters, Little Albert and the Tru-Tones and Tiny Joe Dixon, sing before the Dreamettes perform "Move (You're Steppin' on My Heart)," and the title song, "Dreamgirls," is the first number the trio sings under its new name.

Two of Effie's solos became hits beyond Broadway. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is her stand near the end of the first act, and Jennifer Holliday's recording of it topped the Billboard R&B chart in 1982. "I Am Changing" comes early in the second act, as Effie starts over. Later, her "One Night Only" is pitted against the Dreams' version of the same song, so the business fight plays out in the music itself.

The opening of the second act has changed several times: a medley of earlier songs in 1981, a reprise of "Dreamgirls" from the 1983 tour, a new song with lyrics by Willie Reale on the 2009 tour, and a reprise of "Love Love You Baby" with new Reale lyrics in London in 2016. As of October 2026, the revival has not said which version it will use.

As of October 2026, the producers have said little about the new staging beyond the fact that it is a fresh production rather than a remount of Bennett's version. The September 2025 announcement said the three Dreams would be cast through international open calls for women of every body type, with auditions planned in 12 cities, from Atlanta, Detroit and Toronto to Mexico City, Rome and Paris.

The show started out as a vehicle for Nell Carter, after Eyen and Krieger had worked together in 1975 on a musical version of Eyen's The Dirtiest Show in Town. Workshopped for Joseph Papp as Project #9, with Sheryl Lee Ralph and Loretta Devine, it was shelved when Carter left in 1978. About a year later, Bennett, coming off A Chorus Line, took it up. Holliday walked away from the workshops twice; to win her back, Bennett agreed to rework the second act and build up Effie's part. Backing came from the Shubert family, David Geffen, Metromedia and ABC Entertainment.

After 10 previews from December 9, 1981, the show opened at the Imperial Theatre on December 20, 1981, with Holliday as Effie, Ralph as Deena, Devine as Lorrell, Ben Harney as Curtis, Derricks as Jimmy and Obba Babatundé as C.C. It ran until August 11, 1985, for a total of 1,521 performances, and the 1982 Tony Awards were broadcast from the Imperial while it was playing there.

The 1983 national tour was planned around a long Los Angeles engagement with Holliday still playing Effie. When she left after Los Angeles, Lillias White stepped in, and the tour went on to lengthy runs in San Francisco and Chicago before high costs shut it down. Sharon Brown played Effie on a 1985 international tour. The touring version of Bennett's staging came back to Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre from June 28 to November 29, 1987, with White as Effie. Bennett died of AIDS-related complications on July 2, 1987, during that run.

A 1997 tour directed and choreographed by Tony Stevens was aimed at Broadway in 1998 but never got there: with no Broadway house free, it closed in upstate New York. Frenchie Davis played Effie on a 2004 tour. Robert Longbottom's 2009 touring production, with sets by Wagner and costumes by William Ivey Long, opened at the Apollo Theater and in 2011 went to Montecasino in South Africa.

In 2001, a one-night Actors Fund of America benefit concert at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts brought together Audra McDonald, Heather Headley, Billy Porter, Norm Lewis and White, among others. It became one of the first big public events in New York City after 9/11, and the whole concert was later released on CD.

Bill Condon wrote and directed the 2006 film for DreamWorks and Paramount. It moved the story to Detroit and starred Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé, Eddie Murphy and Hudson, whose Effie won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; the film also won an Oscar for sound mixing.

London's first production, directed by Casey Nicholaw with Amber Riley as Effie, opened at the Savoy Theatre on December 14, 2016, and ran until January 12, 2019; an expected move to Broadway never happened. A UK tour with Nicole Raquel Dennis as Effie opened in December 2021 at the Liverpool Empire Theatre and went on to 26 more venues.

The new revival was announced on September 15, 2025, with performances planned for fall 2026. On August 25, 2026, the producers said the fall opening was off but the production was still moving forward, and that the theater, dates and casting would be announced once confirmed.