
Fame Comes And Goes, Stars Rise And Fall, But Dreams Live Forever
Plot outline
Personal notes
Cast
- Jamie Foxx
- Beyoncé
- Eddie Murphy
- Danny Glover
- Jennifer Hudson
- Anika Noni Rose
- Keith Robinson
- Sharon Leal
- Hinton Battle
- Mariah Iman Wilson
- Yvette Cason
- Ken Page
- Ralph Louis Harris
- Michael-Leon Wooley
- Loretta Devine
- John Lithgow
- John Krasinski
- Alexander Folk
- Esther Scott
- Bobby Slayton
- Jordan Wright
- Dawnn Lewis
- Jaleel White
- JoNell Kennedy
- Sybyl Walker
- Lesley Nicole Lewis
- Eboni Nichols
- Arike Rice
- Fatima Robinson
- Aakomon Jones
- Bernard Fowler
- Anwar Burton
- Tyrell Washington
- Rory O'Malley
- Laura Bell Bundy
- Anne Elizabeth Warren
- Ivar Brogger
- Daren A. Herbert
- Jocko Sims
- Pam Trotter
- Cleo King
- Eddie Mekka
- Alejandro Furth
- Dilva Henry
- Vince Grant
- Robert Cicchini
- Thomas Crawford
- Charles Jones
- Robert Curtis Brown
- Stephanie Owens
- Gilbert Glenn Brown
- Marty Ryan
- Michael Villani
- Gregg Berger
- Daniel Riordan
- David James
- Paul Kirby
- Derick Alexander
- Yvette Nicole Brown
- Nancy Anderson
- Joelle Cosentino
- Lisa Eaton
- Clare Kutsko
- Tracy Phillips
- Kelleia Sheerin
- Mykel Brooks
- Johnny Erasme
- Cory Graves
- J.R. Taylor
- Corinthea Henderson
- Craig Hollamon
- Reginald Jackson
- Chuck Maldonado
- Anthony Rue II
- John Silver
- Larry Sims
- Black Thomas
- Kevin Wilson
- Adrian Wiltshire
- Earl Wright
- Russell 'Goofy' Wright
- Dominic Chaiduang
- Jose Cueva
- Omhmar Griffin
- Sky Hoffmann
- Trevor Lopez-Daggett
- Leo Moctezuma
- Gabriel Paige
- Terrance Spencer
- Tony Testa
- Quinton Weathers
- Jull Weber
- Marcel Wilson
- Stevie Ray Anthony
- Matthew Dickens
- Jerohn Garnett
- Mario Mosley
- Jimmy R.O. Smith
- Michael Cline
- Robert Amico
- Erinn Anova
- Felix J. Boyle
- Barry Brisco
- Erica Burton
- Jacare Calhoun
- Tené Carter Miller
- Wahayn Inello Clayton
- Curt Clendenin
- Barron Edwards
- Alvin Ellie
- Ashley Glenn
- Justin Rodgers Hall
- Bud Joseph Hebert
- Stu James
- Andre Johnson
- Harry Kallet
- Julio Leal
- Jason David McFadden
- Ian Novotny
- Kyra Oser
- Jimmy Pardo
- Damion Poitier
- Lamonte Rogers
- Raquel Rosser
- Daisy Alexandra Sylbert-Torres
- George F. Watson
- Danièle Watts
- Jamar Welch
- Robert Wheeler
- De'Angelo Wright
- Shane Wright
- Debra Zane
Plots
A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.
Detroit, the early 1960s. Curtis Taylor, Jr., a car salesman, breaks into the music business with big dreams. He signs a trio of young women, the Dreamettes, gets them a job backing an R&B performer, James "Thunder" Early, establishes his own record label and starts wheeling and dealing. When Early flames out, Curtis makes the Dreamettes into headliners as the Dreams, but not before demoting their hefty big-voiced lead singer, Effie White, and putting the softer-voiced looker, Deena Jones, in front. Soon after, he fires Effie, sends her into a life of proud poverty, and takes Deena and the Dreams to the top. How long can Curtis stay there, and will Effie ever get her due?
It's the mid-1960s. Detroit-based The Dreamettes, a black girl singing group, is comprised of lead Effie White, and her backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson. They are struggling to make a name for themselves despite their talent. At a local talent competition, they are approached by Curtis Taylor Jr., a used car salesman who wants to break into the music business on the management side. He offers them a job singing backup for James "Thunder" Early, a renowned local black performer who has more of a reputation as a married man seducing his backup singers than his onstage actions, hence the reason he is having problems finding those backup singers. The girls reluctantly accept the offer, that reluctance based on Effie in particular not seeing themselves as backups to anyone else. In making a name for himself and the girls, Curtis brings along for the ride Effie's songwriting brother C.C., and in the process also takes over Jimmy's career. Despite embarking on a sexual relationship, Curtis and Effie, both strong personalities, begin to have diverging views of what it takes to make it in the business, Curtis who sees them needing to break what is racial barrier by sounding more mainstream or "white". The others have to decide what to do, and to who their loyalties lie as they try to make it to the top. Those views may change over time with the onset of the seventies and the change of mainstream musical tastes to disco, and as they see the view from the top in trying to stay there as opposed to looking at the top from the bottom.
Based on the 1981 Broadway musical comes Dreamgirls, a story of greed, tough hate, and romance. Three young women - Deena Jones, Effie White, and Lorrell Robinson - desire to become pop stars and get their wish when they're picked to be backup singers for the legendary James "Thunder" Early. Then they're set free for leads, but Curtis Taylor and Effie's brother C.C. decide for Deena to be lead which upsets Effie.