Why was the original Dreamgirls so expensive?

[anmiller07]

I have been reading the Dreamgirls Coffee Table Book and was wondering what about the original production was so expensive? The book states that the original tour had to close after visiting only 3 cities because it was too expensive to run. Is there anyone who saw the original production that would be able to provide some insight? I, of course, can only rely on clips which are not great quality.

[lizabombs]

What book is this??

[anmiller07]

DREAMGIRLS | your virtual coffee table book of the musical

[lizabombs]

thanks!

[Michael Bennett]

The original production had a design that for the time was incredibly technically complicated; it made use of lighting sound and hydraulic equipment that hadn't really been used on Broadway before and was very difficult to tour with- alot of the theatres they played couldn't even handle the technical demands. After a few stops the tour was retooled and a scaled down/ simpler version went out instead.

[CarlosAlberto]

Yeah...that show was a sight to behold. Those tall gleaming towers that glided around the stage and transformed it in the blink of an eye.

I especially loved the cat walks that descended from the roof of the theater during STEPPIN' TO THE BAD SIDE with all the payola guys on them against a green scrim.

I also loved the long, long staircase and the lighting utilized for that Second Act opener.

That show was just beautifully produced.

[Gaveston2]

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but with the first several companies of A CHORUS LINE, Bennett insisted on sending out exact replicas of the Broadway set with no concessions to the demands of touring. Of course, the New York set was designed to stand for years.

In Miami Beach (the "International" company after stops in London and Toronto), the take-in was a full week with a crew of 40 stagehands to install hard legs, etc., rather than the curtains used by other shows on tour. All this for an 8-week run (which was a record for us, but the set could have lasted 8 years).

Of course, A CHORUS LINE made everyone so much money that refusing Bennett's whims was never an option. I don't know the grosses for DREAMGIRLS, but I doubt it was a hit of the same magnitude.

[egghumor]

I agree with most of what's been put forth thus far, but I want to add another factor. This has been documented elsewhere, but I can't recall where exactly (I'll look for it). Anyway, during the original Broadway run, the cast was on a "favored nations" contract, which meant that everyone was paid the same weekly salary. I assume the chorus had one level, and the principal actors shared a higher one. When it came time to take the show on the road, contracts opened up, and Jennifer Holliday demanded the star salary she felt she had rightly earned and deserved to be paid. Naturally, because of her accelerated fee (and probably that of a few other leading actors) the break-even bar for the show was set much higher. When the box office in Los Angeles was straining, producers asked Miss Holliday to take a cut and she (within her rights) refused. The show's operating costs were simply too high to sustain.

[MTVMANN]

Thanks for that link!!! I wish that would make a hard copy of that virtual book!!!

[DottieD'Luscia]

I saw the original production and the return engagement twice and I remember more about the original production than the latter. What I came away with from the '87 production was that it was Dreamgirls lite. It definitely didn't have the same impact as the original production. I even returned to see Sharon Brown as Effie (loved her as the Narrator in the Joseph) and don't remember anything about her performance.

[egghumor]

I completely agree! I saw the original Broadway production 9 times, and several tours -- which couldn't come close! I have to say though, that I loved Lillias White's Effie, but she was the ONLY element of that production that played the Ambassador that was persuasive.

[EricMontreal22]

Wasn't there a second tour where the towers were moved by actors?

[sephyr]

This is why I love this board. I always learn something new. I really wish I could have seen the original. It sounds like quite the spectacle.

[rosscoe(au)]

This show along with Evita are the two I wish that the original productions would be restaged on Broadway! Thanks so much for the link to the coffee table book.

[CarlosAlberto]

Yes EricMontreal, the 1987 return engagement that played the Ambassador was the one where the towers were moved by the actors.

In the original production the towers were taller, had more lights and glided by themselves.

[My Oh My]

I also love this board because people here just "get it." They know theatre as much as they love it. To everyone else, those gliding towers are gliding towers. To the members here they create several distinct locales and points of view all supplemented and made often times more real than 'real' by ones's own imagination. That's why there is that feeling of magic that is at once rewarding--nothing is spelled out but is suggested and in a way that is remarkably effective.

I agree that the original Dreamgirls and Evita are two productions that should be celebrated and recreated as opposed to 'reinvented.'

[Leadingplayer]

Did Jennifer Holliday go with the show to San Fran and Chicago?

[anmiller07]

Wow, thank you so much everyone for the great responses! I wish I could have been around to see this production; I've never heard anything bad about it.

[morosco]

Holliday didn't play San Francisco after the huge first national tour played Los Angeles. Lillias White was Effie. There was a lot of drama. I remember an article with Michael Bennett where he was talking about Holliday leaving the show and he said something like, "...after all this is not a show about a fat girl and her problems."

[morosco]

In the attached video you can see how the set was reduced for the later tours and the broadway revival. And you get to hear Sharon Brown putting in a pretty fantastic performance.
Sharon Bown - I'm Not Going

[Gothampc]

"I have to say though, that I loved Lillias White's Effie"

If you look in a closet at the Ambassador, Lillias White is still singing all those extra notes she added to "And I Am Telling You".

[Gaveston2]

Only Michael Bennett could get away with staging the show's biggest showstopper/Act I finale BEHIND A F&^KING TABLE and still have people 30 years later arguing that the original staging is sacrosanct.

And, yes, the staging of "Steppin' to the Bad Side" was thrilling. To this day I have no idea what it had to do with the song (except that, of course, actors were "steppin'", often to one side). I thought a lot of Bennett's staging was smoke and mirrors designed to distract us while the show delivered a history lesson. Frankly, I was more interested in the history.

DISCLAIMER: all of the above is quite obviously a minority opinion.

[Mister Matt]

If I remember correctly, wasn't the staging of Steppin' to the Bad Side about paying off DJs to play their records? I recall a sort of slick "assembly line" passing 45s across the stage in slo-mo as you hear the announcements that the single is climbing the charts. What I found truly genius in the number is how the song went from the narrative, describing how they were going to start playing dirty, to transitioning into the studio during a session.

I do love the original staging, though I do think it owes a lot to Prince's vision of Evita with its cinematic approach and ever-changing angles/perspectives. Though Dreamgirls didn't get quite as conceptual and metaphorical, Bennett's production was thrilling and innovative.

[EricMontreal22]

That's how I always interpretated the staging of Bad Side.

[CarlosAlberto]

Actually Mister Matt the number didn't transform to the studio during a session but to an actual performance of their latest single by Jimmy Early and the Dreamettes as they literally marched and sashayed their way onto the stage "wiping" away the scenario that came before.

I tell you that original production was innovative, groundbreaking and thrilling and completely responsible for my love of LIVE musical theater.

[Gaveston2]

I'm sure you're right about "Steppin'", Mister Matt. I just remember finding it very distracting in the 2nd or 3rd row to have actors dancing 40 feet in the air above me. Knowing Bennett, I'm sure there was a rationale for the dance, but I found the actual staging distracting.

And I'm sticking to my guns about having Effie sing "And I Am Telling You..." behind a dressing room table! Not to mention the fact that the song violates every principle of musical theater: after a character sings for 7 minutes with that much force that she is "not going", SHE IS NOT GOING!

And yet in DREAMGIRLS, she does. And stays away through most of Act 2. Huh? What (stage) reality is this?