‘Big, as in Large, as in Huge’

This chapter begins with a consideration of Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen's text and Michael Bennett's choreography and direction as captured in three sources: the 1981 original cast recording, which preserves only pieces of the score; a live recording of the complete score from a 2001 concert performance featuring major Broadway stars; and, most importantly, a 1985 video of the original stage production in the collection of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Bennett's call precisely parses both the difference between the men and the women in Dreamgirls' cast and the distance between Dreamgirls' score and standard Broadway music of the time. Bill Condon's film fundamentally altered the stage original, miniaturizing and muddling Krieger and Eyen's boldly sung story of contrasting black singing styles and shrinking to nearly nothing Bennett's presentation of a dynamic black masculinity.