😂

I saw it as a kid and later my bf at the time got me tickets to a private concert with Jennifer Holiday, and got a VIP ticket's and got to meet her!!!

@@jeffviggiano72 Oh my god that's legendary!

I’ve always said my idea of heaven is getting to see all of the iconic shows I wasn’t around for or able to see. Dreamgirls is on the top of that list. And before the internet and the movie all I had to piece together this show was the abridged obc album which I played till I wore it out

I agree! I wish it was recorded professionally since it was the BEST musical I ever experienced!!!

@@andrewencinas1033 it is haha

Yes, I'm sure it was heavy, heavy...

Lol

🎥😂🤣 what I thought.

😂

🤣🤣

Makes you wonder how someone was able to sneak one of them into the theater.

@@mausrawr9311 Yeah lol, but it’s amazing to just think someone bootlegged dream girls in the 80s lol

At the time, Michael Bennett, the Director, would often say during interviews, "It's not a Black musical. We are a blended production. The performers are Black and much of the creative team is White." This was the early '80s when he was talking like that. The arts have always been way ahead of society. Regardless, ALL involved with this production were exceptional, at the height of their stage skill!

Don’t forget Jennifer Holliday also won a Grammy for her performance of “And I Am Telling You.” We just need NBC to do a live musical version so Alex Newell can win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

the role is a heavenly gift from Florence Ballard ❤️

@@CeliniacForLife or a Broadway revival

crystal williams and amber riley won best actress Olivier for Effie in the London production

Also Amber won an Olivier award for hers💜😁I hope she does the live nbc one.

Thank you for commenting, and I totally agree. :)

franco franus I agree completely! I almost jumped out my pants when I saw up here. Ever since I seen the movie I've been dying to see the original. Thank you so much Damien Slattery for posting this!!!

David, thank you for commenting so nicely.

Damien Slattery i

Thanks for posting this, nice to see it again

Listen...SOMEBODY has it. That would be the find of the CENTURY!!!

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fsl5qdaA3rqVlHU.html

There is one, but it's not the best quality, even by bootleg standards

@@StellarAvenger Omg I would love to have it!! No matter what quality wish I knew where to look, I’m a Trader so I colllect musical bootlegs and haven’t found anything for OBP of “The Wiz” except opening night audio.

The Wiz was the 1st Broadway play I ever saw. I was 7 years old and will never forget it. I INSTANTLY fell in love with Stephanie Mills! 💙💙💙

Big facts

THIS. SO DAMN MUCH.

Excellent observation. And on point. Ms Devine has had perhaps the most consistent acting career of anyone in this cast. Kudos to her!

I was lucky to see her live several times and she stole the show.

Can you tell at what time it plays... Listen song

@@manup6814 Listen was made for Beyonce and altered for Deena and Effie as a duo in later performances. Michael Bennett's vision was for Deena's voice to be the softest and lightest, not for her to belt out like that. That's why she became lead singer, so they could cross over to the pop charts.

One of the most underrated voices in Entertainment. There is a reunion clip of them where Holiday is doing her thing a and Loretta just slides herself on in there like "Oh I can still hang, Sister" lol

I do remember people screaming and talking to Jennifer Holliday during that song -- the audience was having a collective nervous breakdown, it was freaking amazing

Twas on purpose, ending Act I with The Dreams to receive the Effie's applause showing the group was successful without her.

Lovely recollection.

You've pretty much describe the experience just as my mother. She still talks about it til this day and lived vicariously through her. Thank goodness she bought the cast album and I played it so much it's worn and scratched up. I love it! Wish it was opening again on Broadway, at the Imperial theatre, not on the Westend.

I just saw the westend version. It's extremely good. not sure how it will transfer to the larger houses on broadway, but the production is spectacular and the voices are amazing.

Bash Halow Lovely recollection! Get over to my Michael Bennett & his Musicals FB page. ;)

DItto. I was on tour with the Ice Capades, New York 82, my roommate bought tickets and said we're ongoing to see "Dreamgirls". I had absolutely NO idea what we were going to see. It was my first Broadway play and till this what a WONDERFUL memory seeing Jennifer Holiday and the entire cast. She did indeed bring the HOUSE DOWN after her "signature song". ABSOLUTELYE AMAZING!

Thank you for commenting so nicely. :)

Couldn't even hear their song when they came out😂😂😂

Clever staging, if you pull back behind the fourth wall it looks like the audience is going off for the dreams when they enter. Brilliant.

I always thought they should’ve ended Act I with that song directly. It’s such a showstopper.

I've seen the original staging several times in NYC and the tours and always....ALWAYS....the Effie exit got so much applause I never heard the "skinny" Dreams singing "Love Love You Baby" -- it was ALL about the visual of wiping away the "fat, unattractive, problem" and replacing her with the more marketable trio...such a brilliant piece of staging and amazing performance.

@@beaellie9766 Omgg I love that!!

I agree!

I did. It was fantastic!

I did twice. First without Holiday ( understudy Sheila Ellis as good ), later with Holiday. I was lucky in those days. Now, not so much! Lol....or cry out loud... ;)

Lovely!!

I’m so jealous! I’m far too young

I saw Nine and Dreamgirls and other nominees that year on Broadway. And you're right!

I saw it on broadway when I was eleven. At the end of act one I thought I was going to pass out -- chills on top of chills, it was like i was connected to a power grid. Never felt that much electricity in a theatre or anywhere.

I was there for the LA tour after the Tonys. I haven’t been the same since❤

I agree! I couldn't believe how much was missing from the original Broadway cast album. They did release an updated version in 2006 that included three songs not on the original release: "Driving Down The Strip," "It's All Over," and the reprise of "Dreamgirls" at the end with Holliday singing the lead. Until I heard the Dreamgirls In Concert CDs I never knew the big blowout scene of "It's All Over," which leads right into Holliday's show stopping "And I am Telling You (I'm Not Going)." I finally understood why that song was called "And I am..." since it was Effie's response to them singing to her "And we're telling you, it's all over!" From what I heard, I think it was David Geffen or maybe that was for the Sparkle soundtrack but the powers that be didn't want to release a double album back then because #1 people didn't like buying double albums because they cost more money and I'm not sure if it was the Beatles or Donna Summer who hit number 1 with a double album (Beatles White album?), but I know that Summer had the distinction of being the first artist to have 3 double albums go to #1 (Live & More, Bad Girls, On The Radio) one after the other. And also they didn't want to spend the extra money making a double album with three relatively unknown performers like Ralph, Devine, and Holliday, were at the time. But I am hopeful. Some how they found those 3 songs and put them in on the 2006 release, so where did those come from? I'm hoping that even though they didn't release the entire soundtrack maybe they recorded it and those are somewhere. If nothing else, sooner or later technology will be so great, maybe even now that someone can actually take the sound track from this bootleg and digitally clean it up to pristine condition. I'm trying to do that but I have no experience in sound remastering other than the things I learned tinkering around with Sound Edit and now Audacity. I also heard that all Broadway shows (maybe not all but the hits) were recorded on film so that future productions can watch it and keep it the same way. If that's true than they can lift the audio from that and create a complete soundtrack. I did take "I'm Looking For Something" from here and put the version from the Concert together and once I matched it up the notes and the tempo and everything else was almost exactly the same, so when you play it on Audacity the two separate tracks blend together perfectly. I was just seeing if I could cover up the warped part of the audio on here on that track, I didn't think it would work but for that instance it did. Unfortunately when the part comes up with Marty talking to the two back up singers that quit Jimmy Early ("Marty you know I can talk well, Marty you watch me walk") that was maybe a fraction of a second too fast or too slow so it creates an echo. But I'm glad we have this even though it isn't pristine. At least we can hear the originals and I never realized how much Loretta Devine's vocals contributed to the songs I always thought it was Jennifer that we're hearing, not that she doesn't have a strong steel belted vocal, but it's Loretta's voice ringing behind Ralph's, as it blends with Holliday's, and allows Ralph's voice to float along theirs.

Absolutely!!! This whole show is basically sung through and the only one I know of its kind.

Broadway concert version recording is out there. Has full Broadway score and book.

What if it is? That would've been amazing.

:)

poetryindeed I agree💚💚

And video cameras were big back then!

They are original dream team. Thank you Tiffany :)

Nell Carter was in the workshop for Dreamgirls before Jennifer Holliday. She was supposed to play Effie but she got her role in Gimme a Break and couldn't do the production.

Loretta Devine voice is unmistakable

Before I saw Holiday in the role, I saw an understudy who matched Holiday. Her name is Sheila Ellis.

@@joshuamcdowell9745 Jenifer Lewis was in the workshop as well to play Effie

Gene, you LOVE Dreamgirls for sure.

I do! I saw the original so many times the cast knew me. I have photos with them from 30 years ago! (I have met each one personally and actually had lunch with Jennifer Holiday in 2004 - I was a manager at a luxury hotel in NYC where she came to stay so that was easy and lucky!) Remember, this was years before there were any lotteries for cheap front row tickets like today. The original closed in 1985 and a weak scaled down version was revived in 1987. I then followed the tour to Toronto, Washington, and Boston. Saw it at every possible theater in the tri-state area. THEN IT DISAPPEARED and DG was not heard of for years. Then in 2002 I got to see the 20th Anniversary Benefit Concert and that was great to relive. In 2004 I flew to Pittsburgh to see Frenchie Davis play Effie. Then the film in 2006 gave it new life (critiquing the film is another conversation!) Saw it at the Apollo Theater in NYC with Syesha Mercado (from American Idol) as Deena. Just saw it in Las Vegas last month. Dreamgirls will go on and on for me....

Lovely, you are an uber fan !

Thank you for indulging me. I am not allowed to mention DG to my family!

You are one of a large number of Dreamgirls superfans.

Michael Peters worked with Michael Jackson, He can also be seen in MJ's "Beat It"

He did mention in an interview that he watched this show in the theatre!

He said he saw it.

So true !

Some things are just priceless

Every Broadway show is filmed and be kept at the new York library...

Every Broadway show is professionally filmed, however, it's a violation to post them to the internet.

@@GalaxyNexus1 Do you know why? Is it really a union thing? For newer shows I might understand, Broadway would lose money. But the older shows, why? Or would it be like having an album and putting it on the internet for everyone to hear and no one would buy any more copies?

@@martinsorenson1055 because people need to be compensated for their work. You can't just take someone else's property and distribute it as you please. It's no different than going into a movie theater and filming every movie than posting it on KZfaq. Not only do writers, creators and Producers hold rights, but professional performers, also are compensated (and deserve to be) for the distribution of their work.

Nicely expressed. :)

Not the London version she was awful

@@atlsuperstar ooo I don’t need this cast I really didn’t enjoy Deena that much either, I just want this show on stage again!!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭😭

Holliday was only in the show for months and she missed MANY performances, as many as five in a week.

No disrespect, but Michael Jackson wasn't in the broadway production of The Wiz, he was in the film version of that play.

Michael Jackson wasn't in the Broadway version

The Wiz was my first play. I saw Dreamgirls several years later as well. Broadway was a whole other bag back then -- pure electricity.

Lovely comment!

🤗🤗

💕

Whitney, Anita, and Jennifer? Our hearts and edges couldn’t have handled all of that beauty, range, and power!

Wow that’s amazing, but question did you see The Wiz in 1975 on Broadway I wish the people who have the recording of the show would release it.

Michael Bennett should have never cut the Act II Press Conference. From what I read, he was never happy with its staging and so he cut it after doing revisions for the LA production. It’s a shame he did because it provided a lot of backstory and tension of what was going on between Act I and Act II. If they never do a Broadway revival, it should be restored.

@@bradleyscarton3931 I agree! It also makes Deena’s line “How many times, Oh Effie, how many times I’ve wanted to see you” seem more genuine with that context provided in the press conference.

“I went out and made it on my own and not I have the best friend I’ve ever known” slightly mirrors “you’re the best man I’ve ever known” from and I am telling you .. it’s brilliantly written. Another theme comes to mind with Lorel her’s was “party” with her arch ending with “ain’t no party”

Hardly. She won the Tony, then disappeared.

That's because it is...LOL. No matter how good a movie remake of a Broadway show is...they never come close to the stage experience of that show.

Yeah. 😡 That made me so mad 😠 I would've beat his ass.

I'm still trying to figure out why Curtis bothered dating Effie in the first place when he was crushing on Deena from the start. Did he ever truly have feelings for Effie?

@@singer2be256 I wondered the same, I think it was for control. Deana and Laurel were easily controlled. He used the relationship to manipulate Effie.

@@singer2be256 He used Effie....he was a slick car salesman (literally) and got what he needed from her then moved her OUT. Ben Harney won a Tony Award as Best Actor for his performance as, like Effie, the audience loved him AND hated him. He was smooth, sexy, dangerous, and cruel. The audience, again like Effie, was wrapped around his finger. Terrific character.

@@singer2be256 He needed her to convince the girls. Without her they didn’t make big decisions

Lovely recollection. :)

yes I can relate to you I was 10 years old when Dreamgirls hit broadway I only lived across the water in Jersey only 10 min ride path train and I would beg my mother everytime we would go to NYC shopping I would see the billboard and get excited beg her to get tickets but she never did so this video is the closest i could get to see

Lovely comments. It was not me that filmed this but you certainly had a day of pure joy way back then.

It is nuts...if you were going to get only one of the originals to make a Cameo, it should have been Jennifer Holiday for sure...or you shoulda got all 3...

She did NOT make Dreamgirls. There were MANY talented people who made the show. Michael Bennet's brilliant staging and his choreography, along with Michael Peters made the show, as did the brilliant costumes, and score. It is STUPID to credit Holliday alone. Ridiculous. It opened in Dec. 1981 and she missed SO many performances. I had to go three times to FINALLY see her and she did less than 200 performances and the show ran over 1500. For me, Loretta Devine stole the show because as volcanic as Holliday's singing was, she could not act.

Her voice makes it soo infectious

It is a highlight but it made sense to cut it from the film. A film is linear and a minor character having a big moment is very disruptive to the storytelling.

@@user-sh4mv3tc3r the issue is it being cut is the main thing that makes Lorell seem like a minor character, which she shouldn't. The fact that Anika auditioned with it is even more frustrating

This production was not perceived as a "Black musical" -- much like the music it celebrates, it was a "crossover" musical. I saw it several times on Broadway and the audience was always mixed, EVERYONE celebrating it regardless of skin color. The Director (Michael Bennett) often gave interviews talking about the mixed cast, mixed creatives, etc. It was a production WAY AHEAD of society.

You can hear someone shout "HOT DAMN!" as well

Jennifer Holiday

Thank you for commenting so nicely, Check out my Michael Bennett & his Musicals FB group, as many luminaries are in there and lots of rarities posted. facebook.com/groups/167353876624927/

Good to hear that. :)

Trinity Smith they are the best💚💚

Will Smith is not a singer. He's a rapper and actor so how good did you expect for him to be singing?

It was an astonishing production.

Thank you for such a nice comment. :)