Video: Jennifer Holliday Reflects on DREAMGIRLS in JENNIFER HUDSON SHOW Interview

Tony Award winner Jennifer Holliday recently joined The Jennifer Hudson Show and took a look back at the original 1981 Broadway production of Dreamgirls. Having originated the character of Effie White on Broadway, she told Hudson about her role in expanding the part during the musical's development.

"We were working on [Dreamgirls]... and they had already started creating her character. But people don't know that Effie was not in the second act," Holliday recalled. "It gave me a chance to fight for Effie, for her to be a whole part of the show... and for her not to have a story that didn't have a happy ending like the others."

During the conversation, Holliday also opened up about working with her co-stars Sheryl Lee Ralph and Loretta Devine, and shared some of her "Mount Rushmore" singer inspirations, which include Barbra Streisand. In another segment of the show, Holliday took the stage alongside Hudson to perform a special duet rendition of the Dreamgirls song "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." Check it out here.

In 2026, Dreamgirls will return to Broadway in its first-ever newly directed and choreographed Broadway revival. With a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger, this new production will be directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown.

Since its original Broadway premiere at the Imperial Theatre in 1981, Dreamgirls has been hailed as a seismic cultural event and one of the most electrifying musicals of all time. Directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, the original production fused R&B, soul, and showbiz storytelling like never before, introducing now-legendary hits, including “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” “One Night Only,” and the title anthem “Dreamgirls.”

That original production garnered 13 Tony Award nominations and won six, including Best Book of a Musical, Best Actor and Actress in Featured Roles, and launched the career of Jennifer Holliday—whose iconic Act I showstopper had audiences leaping to their feet mid-performance. The 2006 film version featured a cast including Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson. The movie was a critical and box office hit.