About the work
Once is a musical with music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová and a book by Enda Walsh, premiered in 2011 (Off-Broadway, then Broadway in 2012). Based on the 2007 Irish independent film, it won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Plot
In Dublin, a disillusioned Irish busker and vacuum-cleaner repairman, on the verge of giving up his music, meets a young Czech immigrant who plays the piano. Over one intense week she encourages him to record his songs, and a tender, music-borne bond grows between them. But both carry unresolved attachments—his lost love, her marriage—so that their encounter remains a fleeting, precious one that leaves both changed.
Cultural significance
Once broke with Broadway convention: the performers play their instruments themselves on stage, and the intimate, acoustic folk format stands in deliberate contrast to the great mega-musicals. The song Falling Slowly had already won the Academy Award as a film song. The work is regarded as a pioneer of a new, chamber-intimate type of musical and proved that quiet tones can also triumph on Broadway.