Jennifer Holliday lights up Dreamgirls
By Kristi Casey Sanders
Theater lovers are in for a special treat this month. Jennifer Holliday is reprising the role of Effie in Theater of the Stars’ production of Dreamgirls , possibly for the last time. And the show only is playing Atlanta.
When the show premiered on Broadway 26 years ago, Holliday’s performance garnered a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical; for her recording of Effie’s show-stopping number “And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going,” Holliday won a Grammy Award.
Dreamgirls wasn’t Holliday’s first show. She made her Broadway debut in Arms Too Short To Box With God , and had been working on Broadway and touring with that show for two years before she was asked to join the Dreamgirls workshop, replacing Nell Carter, at age 19.
“I didn’t land the role of Effie,” Holliday says. “I created the role. I was on Broadway in Arms Too Short To Box With God and they were workshopping a musical that was going to become Dreamgirls . But at that time, Dreamgirls had no title, no set form, no set characters. They knew they were going to have a character (which turned into) Effie, but she was not going to be a character present throughout the whole show, she was going to die at the end of Act One.”
Dreamgirls began to take shape under the direction of Michael Bennett, who came on board as the show ramped up for Broadway. Fresh from the success of A Chorus Line , Bennett was considered by many to be the reigning King of Broadway.
“Everything changed,” Holliday remembers. “He began to work with me personally about what Effie’s role in the show would be. He wanted her to die, too. He said, ‘There are no stars in my shows. I do ensemble pieces.’” Unhappy with the role, Holliday left the show during its workshop phase. Bennett convinced her to come back and had the second act rewritten.
“It was my decision for her to live, but he had to approve it,” Holliday says. “Effie became a winner; not only in the music career, but more of a winner in life.
“I don’t know anything at that age that could have given me the wisdom, the knowledge to know that that’s how it had to be, so I don’t claim wisdom or knowledge; I didn’t have it,” she adds. “To say to him, ‘If it’s not this way, then I’m not going to do it,’ which I did, and the fact that he gave in … if I was older, I wouldn’t have fought so hard. Because I think the older you get, the more of a coward you become.”
Holliday was 21 when the show opened on Broadway, and it launched her career. The popularity of the 2006 movie Dreamgirls , which won its Effie (Jennifer Hudson) an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, proves the role still resonates with audiences.
Holliday says the success of the movie is the main reason she wanted to do the play one more time. “I’d like people to see the original. … The movie was quite different from the play. The play had a lot more heart and much more excitement. And it was much shorter than the movie.”
The character of Effie in the stage version also is very different from her movie counterpart. “I think [the play’s] Effie is more of a woman in love, a woman who is rejected, which is the underlying passion for my long song ‘And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going,’” Holliday points out. “The movie portrayal of Effie is more career-driven, and it gives her an angrier edge. It’s not about the love story; you don’t really see that. And they added new scenes where she’s like, ‘Listen to my new song’ and ‘When am I gonna get a record?’ In the show she’s more like, ‘I’ve met this man and I’ve fallen in love, and if I sing, that’s fine, but I really want to be with him.’”
The movie’s success also has created an interesting quandary for Holliday, who says she feels her career has been given a second wind. “Going through this period of being discovered and rediscovered has given me some great motivation to at least entertain some things as to what I would and would not do. … Because of the movie I have a lot of options, and that’s part of the problem. But it’s a good problem to have,” she laughs.
Dreamgirls plays The Fabulous Fox Theatre July 19-29.
