'Dreamgirls' dazzles on all fronts, so catch it while it lasts

The musical "Dreamgirls" pulsates with excitement from its starting cowbell downbeat to its melisma-scaled sung finale. The 1981 Broadway smash by composer Henry Kreiger and librettist Tom Eyen rarely gets revived professionally, so make a beeline to Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre now while this glittering new tour of "Dreamgirls" is in town.

Set between 1962 and 1975, "Dreamgirls" explores the successes, setbacks and compromises that African-American singers faced as they became increasingly integrated into mainstream American pop culture.

The main focus is on the fictional girl group "The Dreamettes," consisting of the full-sized singer Effie White (vocal powerhouse Moya Angela) and her more-svelte friends Lorrell Robinson (Adrienne Warren) and Deena Jones ("American Idol's" seventh season second-runner up Syesha Mercado).

With dreams of mainstream success, hard-driving former Cadillac dealer Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Chaz Lamar Shepherd) hustles his way into becoming the girls' manager (and Effie's lover). But when Curtis later renames the group as The Dreams, he dumps Effie and makes Deena the lead singer - to be more marketable with white audiences.

Curtis also has a showdown with veteran agent Marty Madison (Milton Craig Nealy) by wresting away control of his top soul-singing client James "Thunder" Early played by Chicago native Chester Gregory, who all but steals the show with his energetic stage antics that come across as a mixture of Little Richard, James Brown and Jackie Wilson.

There's not really a weak link in the cast, which also benefits from Trevon Davis as Effie's songwriter brother C.C. White and Margaret Hoffman as Effie's replacement Michelle Morris.

And as for Effie's all-important Act I finale "And I am Telling You I'm Not Going," Moya Angela fires on all vocal cylinders to live up to the role's famed predecessors of Jennifer Holiday on Broadway and Jennifer Hudson in the 2006 film version.

Director/choreographer Robert Longbottom stages a fluid and super cinematic production thanks in huge part to designer Robin Wagner's high-tech sets of sliding and rotating LED video panels and Ken Billington's flashy lighting design. Costume designer William Ivey Long also provides a fashion parade of glamorous period costumes.

If there's any criticism to be leveled at this new "Dreamgirls," it comes off as being too polished and slick at times. The relentlessly fast pace also seems to hamper some actors from blossoming as fully rounded characters.

But these quibbles are inconsequential. Everything else in this "Dreamgirls" tour is so stellar that you'd be missing out if you didn't get a chance to see it.