Just found out that character actress Jenifer Lewis originated the role of Effie White during the workshop of "Dreamgirls", only to lose the role to Jennifer Holliday. Just think that if she had played the part there wouldn't be an 80-year old woman still trying to play the same part she played in the 70s...
Visceral_Fella, I honestly had no clue who Jenifer Lewis was (and had to google her), but I thought the same thing, that OP meant Nell Carter as that's who I thought the role was meant for. I adore her and her voice, I would have loved to hear her sing those songs. She was gone too soon.
"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."
I don't know that we want to hear Jenifer Lewis' Deana, but the lady can sing pretty well and really act. Be sure and catch her TV movie (a parody of show biz bios) called JACKIE'S BACK, from 1999.
Nell Carter, like Jennifer Holliday, was a unique, world-class singer who also walked on water, as far as I'm concerned. But I've never heard her sing what we have called "R&B" since the 1970s. Perhaps because she was known for AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' she tended to sing what was called R&B back in the first half of the 20th century, i.e., what we would now call "standards".
DREAMGIRLS might have had a somewhat different score with Carter in the cast.
I found this information out from the World of Wonder website. I have been a huge fan of Jenifer Lewis ever since I saw her as a Harlette for Bette Midler's "De Tour" in the 1980s. Loved her is "What's Love Got To Do With It" also...