Arts & Entertainment
Ready to blow the roof off
Signature brings legendary ‘Dreamgirls’ show to region
‘Dreamgirls’
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, VA
Through Jan. 6
(Pride Night Dec. 7)
Tickets: start at $40
703-573-SEAT
Nova Y. Payton as Effie in Signature Theatre’s ‘Dreamgirls.’ Jennifer Holliday originated the role on Broadway. (Photo by Chris Mueller; courtesy of Signature Theatre)
Arlington’s Signature Theatre is about to tackle one of the biggest shows in Broadway and Hollywood history: “Dreamgirls.”
Director and choreographer Matt Gardiner had one word to describe his initial reaction: “daunting.” For actress Nova Payton, who will be starring as Effie White, the word was “demanding.” For costume designer Frank Labovitz, the word was “huge.”
“Dreamgirls” is a show that is often tagged with the word “legendary.” It was the last major show of legendary Broadway director and choreographer Michael Bennett. It was legendary for the backstage fights during workshops, rehearsals and previews, for the 20-minute show-stopping ovation during Act I on opening night, and for the long run on Broadway, along with numerous national and international tours. It was also legendary for the staging that featured set designer Robin Wagner’s rotating towers and for Theoni’s V. Aldredge’s dazzling costumes (both of which were featured on the show’s iconic posters).
And it was legendary for the new sounds that composer Henry Krieger brought to Broadway and for the smooth cinematic way that lyricist and bookwriter Tom Eyen wove the music and dialogue together. It became legendary for a movie adaptation that won an Academy Award for “American Idol” runner-up Jennifer Hudson in her movie debut.
“Dreamgirls” tells the story of the Dreamettes, a girl group from Chicago that rises to international fame. The plot is loosely based on the saga of Diana Ross and the Supremes and other Motown-era figures. After losing a talent competition at the famous Apollo Theatre in New York, the Dreamettes are hired as back-up singers for James Thunder Early. Spurred on by their ambitious manager Curtis Taylor, Jr., the girls break away from Jimmy and begin performing as “the Dreams.” Effie White (a character somewhat based on Supremes’ founder Florence Ballard) sings lead and her friends Deena Jones (the Diana Ross figure) and Lorrell Robinson sing back-up.
Although he is having an affair with Effie, Curtis moves Deena to the front of the group. She has a smoother sound and a slicker look that he thinks will be more appealing to white audiences, enabling the group to cross over and sell more records. Although the group does become increasingly popular, Effie is not happy singing back-up and begins to suspect that Curtis is having an affair with Deena. Her suspicions are confirmed when Curtis dumps her personally and professionally.
That’s the cue for the show’s most famous number, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” which original Effie Jennifer Holliday performed twice last year in D.C. — at Pride and with the Gay Men’s Chorus.
As Act II opens and the story moves from the 1960s to the 1970s, Curtis marries Deena, who becomes an international superstar, although she yearns to be seen as a serious actress. Jimmy falls on hard times when he rejects Curtis’ advice on how to appeal to broader audiences. Effie has a child and struggles to rebuild her career. The Dreams help usher in the disco era, and the rest is music — and musical theater — history.
Faced with this challenging material and famous predecessors, Gardiner and his collaborators have developed a fresh and exciting approach to the show.
“I spent a lot of time with our design team trying to come up with a way to do it that honored Michael Bennett’s original intention but made it our own,” he says. “At Signature, we would never be able recreate Bennett’s staging, so we are trying to find our own way into it that is more Signature.”
For example, the openly gay Gardiner notes, “Bennett and the writers really played with the idea of perspective, the change between backstage and onstage. In that original production he had the use of these beautiful towers that became iconic in the way the show is remembered. From the onset, we knew that we weren’t going to do it that way. We asked how do we play with the idea of perspective, both onstage and offstage, and the whole idea of the glamorous sparkle and what’s underneath it.” To answer that, they’ve created a more intimate approach to the musical that uses a smaller ensemble and focuses more clearly on the Dreams and their leading men.
One of the things that will give Signature Theatre’s production of “Dreamgirls” a distinctive feel is Nova Y. Payton’s highly anticipated performance as Effie White. Gardiner freely admits, “It is no secret that Signature chose the piece for her and I don’t think anyone’s going to be let down.”
Maryland native Gardiner is full of praise for his star. “She’s a wonderful person first and foremost and then on top of that she has the most killer voice. She’s a spectacular actress and a spectacular singer and we’re waiting for her to blow the roof off Signature.”
D.C. native Payton returns the praise to Gardiner. “I love Matt!” she says. “This will be second show I’ve done with him. (Their first collaboration was last season’s “Zanadu.”) Matt is brilliant. His vision of the show is very clear. In rehearsal, he’s very precise about what he’s looking for but at the same time allowing us as actors to bring what we may see. We are a team trying to put this production together and he trusts us.”
Payton also has great praise for the work of costume designer Frank Labovitz, although she won’t reveal much about the fabulous costumes she will be wearing.
“I don’t want to give away too much,” she says, “because when you think about “Dreamgirls” you think about the beautiful costumes.”
But she does praise Labovitz for his innovative design. “What excited me about Frank’s renderings was how different they were from what I’ve seen before. It’s fresh and a very new feel, but it stays true to the period. And of course there are lots of sequins and bright colors and beautiful shoes and wonderful hair and makeup. You can definitely look forward to that.”
Labovitz estimates that there are about 200 costumes in the show. The Dreams alone have 11 sets of three matching dresses, plus their individual costumes with day looks and eveningwear “It’s a constant parade of costumes,” the designer says. “If an actor isn’t onstage, he’s offstage changing clothes.” Labovitz says the costumes are almost like another character in the play. They help to tell the story, detailing the changing circumstances of the characters and capturing the feel of the rapidly changing world around them. “It’s rare that you get to work on a show where the costumes are so central to telling the story.”
The costume designer is also a big fan of Hollywood’s version of “Dreamgirls.”
“One of the things that was great about the movie was how faithful they were to the original,” he says. “The movie version really maintains the character of the show.” But he adds, there’s nothing like seeing the show in a theater. “There is something magical about watching it live. Some of the moments in the show are unbelievable, like when someone does a costume change onstage in front of you and you don’t see it happen because of tricks with lights and costumes. Those moments onstage seem to defy reality.” Like when the Dreams exit in one costume and appear onstage six seconds later in a different outfit.
The opening of “Dreamgirls” at Signature Theatre will also have a special resonance for D.C.’s LGBT community. While the show is a favorite for gay and lesbian audiences, the show’s signature song, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” has long been a special favorite for drag queens in the nation’s capital and around the world. Many of D.C.’s leading ladies of drag will no doubt be rotating the song back into their act. And that’s fine with Nova Payton, who says, “I love seeing the ladies do what they do.”
Frank Labovitz also offers some advice about tackling the song: “It’s all about the attitude. It’s about owning it, about being as fiercely tenacious as you can be. It’s larger than life and it’s expressing an emotion we’re all familiar with, the idea that we’re not ready to move on yet.”
In the meantime, Matt Gardiner says theatergoers can expect one of the largest productions that Signature has ever done.
“It will blow people away,” he says.
There was a time, early in his career, that young filmmaker Wes Anderson’s work was labeled “quirky.”
To describe his blend of dry humor, deadpan whimsy, and unresolved yearning, along with his flights of theatrical fancy and obsessive attention to detail, it seemed apt at the time. His first films were part of a wave when “quirky” was almost a genre unto itself, constituting a handy-but-undefinable marketing label that inevitably became a dismissive synonym for “played out.”
That, of course, is why every new Wes Anderson film can be expected to elicit criticism simply for being a Wes Anderson film, and the latest entry to his cinematic canon is, predictably, no exception.
“The Phoenician Scheme” – released nationwide on June 6 – is perhaps Anderson’s most “Anderson-y” movie yet. Set in a nebulously dated (but vaguely mid-20th century) world, it’s the tall-tale-ish saga of Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro), a ruthlessly amoral arms dealer and business tycoon with a history of surviving assassination attempts. The latest – a bomb-facilitated plane crash – has forced him to recognize that his luck will eventually run out, and he decides to turn over his financial empire (on a trial basis, at least) to his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), currently a novice nun on the verge of taking her vows, in hopes of mending their relationship before it’s too late. She conditionally agrees, despite the rumors that he murdered her mother, and is drawn into an elaborate geopolitical con game in which he tries to manipulate a loose cadre of “world-building” financiers (Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, and Jeffrey Wright) into funding a massive infrastructure project across the former Phoenician empire.
Joined by his new administrative assistant and tutor, Mr. Bjorn (Michael Cera), Korda and Liesl travel the world to meet with his would-be investors, dodging assassination attempts along the way. His plot is disrupted, however, by the clandestine interference of a secret international coalition of nations led by an American agent code-named “Excalibur” (Rupert Friend), who seeks to prevent the shift of geopolitical power his project would create. Eventually, he’s forced to target a final “mark” for the money he needs to pull it off – his own half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), with whom he has had a lifelong and very messy rivalry – or lose his fortune, his oligarchic empire, and his slowly improving relationship with his daughter, all at once.
It’s clear from that synopsis that Anderson’s scope has widened far beyond the intimate stories of his earliest works – “Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and others, which mostly dealt with relationships and dynamics among family (or chosen family) – to encompass significantly larger themes. So, too, has his own singular flavor of filmmaking become more fully realized; his exploration of theatrical techniques within a cinematic setting has grown from the inclusion of a few comical set-pieces to a full-blown translation of the real world into a kind of living, efficiently-modular Bauhaus diorama, where the artifice is emphasized rather than suggested, and realism can only be found through the director’s unconventionally-adjusted focus.
His work is no longer “quirky” – instead, it has grown with him to become something more pithy, an extension of the surreal and absurdist art movement that exploded in the tense days before World War II (an era which bears a far-too-uncomfortable resemblance to our own) and expresses the kind of politically-aware philosophical ideas that helped to build the world we are living in now. It is no longer possible to enjoy a Wes Anderson movie on the basis of its surface value alone; it is necessary to read deeper in the cinematic language that he has honed since the start of his career, informed by a deep knowledge of art, history, and intellectual exploration to which he pays open and unapologetic homage on the screen. Like all auteurs, he makes films that are shaped by his personal thought and vision, that follow a meticulous logic he has created himself, and that are less interested in providing entertainment than they are in providing insight into the wildly conflicted, often nonsensical, and almost always deplorable human behavior.
By typical standards, the performances in “Phoenician Scheme” – like those in most of Anderson’s films – feel stylized, distant, even emotionally cold. But within his meticulously stoic milieu, they are infused with a subtle depth that comes as much from the carefully maintained blankness of their delivery as it does from the lines themselves. Both del Toro and Threapleton manage to forge a deeply affecting bond while maintaining the detachment that is part of the director’s established style, and Cera – whose character reveals himself to be more than he appears as part of the story’s progression – begs the question of why he hasn’t become a “Wes Anderson regular” long before this. As always, part of the fun comes from the appearances of so many familiar faces, actors who have become part of an ever-expanding collection of regular players – including most-frequent collaborator Bill Murray, who joins fellow Anderson troupers Willem Dafoe and F. Murray Abraham as part of the “Biblical Troupe” that enact the frequent “near-death” episodes experienced by del Toro’s Korda throughout, and Scarlett Johansson, who shows up as a second cousin that Korda courts for a marriage of financial convenience – and the obvious commitment they bring to the project beside the rest of the cast.
But no Anderson film is really about the acting, though it’s an integral part of what makes them work – as this one does, magnificently, from the intricately choreographed opening credit sequence to the explosive climax atop an elaborate mechanical model of Korda’s dream project (a nod to Jean Renoir’s classic “The Rules of the Game,” which also examines the follies of the economic elite on the cusp of its own downfall). In the end, it’s Anderson himself who is the star, orchestrating his thoroughly-catalogued vision like a clockwork puzzle until it pays off on a note of surprisingly un-bittersweet hope which reminds us that the importance of family and personal bonds is, in fact, still at the core of his ethos.
That said, and a mostly favorable critical response aside, there are numerous critics and self-identified fans who have been less than charmed by Anderson’s latest opus, finding it a redundant exercise in a style that has grown stale and offers little substance in exchange. Frankly, it’s impossible not to wonder if they have seen the same movie we have.
“The Phoenician Scheme,” like all of its creator’s work, is ultimately an esoteric experience, a film steeped in language and concepts that may only be accessible to those familiar with them – which, far from being a means of shutting out the “unenlightened,” aims instead to entice and encourage them to explore and expand their knowledge, and with it, their perspective. It might be frustrating, but the payoff is worth it.
In this case, the shrewdly astute political and economical realities he illuminates behind the “Hollywood” intrigue and artifice touch so profoundly on the current state of our world that, despite its lack of directly queer subject matter, we’re giving it our deepest recommendation.
WorldPride 2025 concluded with the WorldPride Street Festival and Closing Concert held along Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. on Sunday, June 8. Performers on the main stage included Doechii, Khalid, Courtney Act, Parker Matthews, 2AM Ricky, Suzie Toot, MkX and Brooke Eden.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2025 WorldPride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 7. Laverne Cox and Renée Rapp were the grand marshals.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key and Robert Rapanut)
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