Put Down Your Fiddle! Irish Pub Closes Shop as Intimate Broadway Musical Once Ends | Playbill

News Put Down Your Fiddle! Irish Pub Closes Shop as Intimate Broadway Musical Once Ends The Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning Best Musical Once, based on the Oscar-winning film about an Irish singer-songwriter named Guy who falls for a Czech immigrant named Girl, plays its final Broadway performance Jan. 4.

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Paul Nolan Photo by Joan Marcus

By the time of closing, the musical, which recouped its capitalization in under six months in August 2012 (faster than any Tony Award-winning Best Musical in more than a decade at that time), will have played 1,167 regular performances and 22 previews.

The most-awarded show of the 2012 New York theatre season, Once won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The production also won Best Musical from the New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards as well as the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. 

An Australian production of Once recently opened in Melbourne, and the first non-English language production opened in Seoul, South Korea. A Toronto production will open in February 2015. Click here for the schedule of the musical's U.S. tour.

Also in development are productions in Sweden, Brazil, Holland, Greece, The Czech Republic, Thailand and Ireland as well as a Japanese-language production.

Based on the 2007 Academy Award-winning film, Once opened to critical acclaim March 18, 2012, following engagements at New York Theatre Workshop and in Cambridge, MA.  Once features a book by award-winning Irish playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh, the Academy Award-winning music and lyrics of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, direction by John Tiffany, movement by Steven Hoggett and music supervision and orchestrations by Martin Lowe.

The current cast of Once on Broadway features Paul Alexander Nolan as Guy and Jessie Fisher as Girl with Laurel Griggs, David Patrick Kelly, Sophie Knapp, Katrina Lenk, Anne L. Nathan, Lucas Papaelias, Scott Stangland, Andy Taylor, Ryan Vona, Erikka Walsh, Paul Whitty and J. Michael Zygo.

Once is also playing in London's West End at the Phoenix Theatre, where it opened April 9, 2013, after premiering to critical acclaim in Dublin, Ireland in February 2013. 

Once will complete its run in the West End March 21, prior to going on a European tour. Ronan Keating will play Guy and Jill Winternitz will play Girl to the end of the engagement. The London production of Once won two 2014 Olivier Awards.

"Featuring an impressive ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage, Once," according to press notes, "tells the enchanting tale of a Dublin street musician who's about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. As the chemistry between them grows, his music soars to powerful new heights... but their unlikely connection turns out to be deeper and more complex than your everyday romance. Emotionally captivating and theatrically breathtaking, Once draws you in from the very first note and never lets go. It's an unforgettable story about going for your dreams and the power of music to connect us all."

Once was produced on Broadway by Barbara Broccoli, John N. Hart Jr., Patrick Milling Smith, Frederick Zollo, Brian Carmody, Michael G. Wilson, Orin Wolf, The Shubert Organization and Executive Producer Robert Cole, in association with New York Theatre Workshop.

Visit OnceMusical.com.

 
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