There was a time when feature films were the last stop before musicals went to live forever in amateur productions and summer stock. No more. A Chicago, Mamma Mia!, or Phantom can open on the big screen in the midst of a long run on Broadway, or in this case a film version released 25 years after its Broadway opening can spark enough interest to fund a big new flashy stage production. Never having seen the original, I jumped at the chance to see Dreamgirls for the first time on stage. While I must rely on the accounts of others to compare it to the legendary stagecraft of the original, the current national tour that opened at New York's Apollo Theater in November and hit Chicago for a two-week stand on January 19th, is itself a visual stunner. In its imaginative scenic, lighting and projection designs that suggest a multitude of locations over a 13-year period from 1962-75, and hundreds of costumes befitting a trio of pop-music divas and their entourages, this Dreamgirls shows how the magic of stagecraft can surprise in a way a big-budget feature film no longer can.