Walsh Enda - Once

A love story played with fierce sincerity and unexpected honesty. Wall Street Journal The musical has a masterful, even revelatory, book by the Irish playwright Enda Walsh ... it is no traditional screen-to-stage adaptation. Rather, its a textbook example of how to do it right. Everything you see, hear and feel is inherently theatrical... you start to feel things the movie simply could not make you feel.

The characters deepen, and their dilemmas seem to pulse directly to you. Chicago Tribune Beautiful. New York magazine The sweetest and most romantic show on Broadway... Spanning a week in Dublin, the story is deceptively simple and speaks volumes about the power of music and connection. Daily News Original and emotionally exhilarating, Once is the sort of revivifying breeze nowhere more necessary than on Broadway. Washington Post Once is unusually fun and heartfelt musical theater.

New Yorker Heart-stopping and enthralling. Its a genuine thrill to hear an entire Broadway house hushed and focused on the action onstage. And it makes the roar of applause at the end all the more ecstatic. Huffington Post A rhapsodic, unique musical that retains all the heart of the original Irish film. Variety Once in a blue moon, perhaps Once in a decade or so, a new Broadway musical breaks the rules, challenges expectations and delights audiences with something they didnt realize they were longing for. Once is that musical.

Columbus Dispatch

Leave	Guy
Falling Slowly	Guy, Girl, Ensemble
North Strand	Ensemble
The Moon	Girl, Guy
Ej Pad, Pad Rosika	Baruka, Ensemble
If You Want Me	Girl, Ensemble
Broken-Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy	Guy
Say It to Me Now	Guy
Abandoned in Bandon	Bank Manager
Gold	Guy, Ensemble

When Your Minds Made Up	Guy, Girl, Ensemble
Sleeping	Guy
The Hill	Girl
Gold (Reprise, a cappella)	Billy, Ensemble
The Moon (Reprise)	Guy, Girl, Ensemble
Falling Slowly (Reprise)	Guy, Girl, Ensemble

once BOOKS BY ENDA WALSH AVAILABLE FROM TCG The New Electric Ballroom and The Walworth Farce Once Penelope The Small Things and Other Plays INCLUDES: bedbound Chatroom Disco Pigs The Ginger Ale Boy How These Desperate Men Talk Lynndies Gotta Gun misterman The Small Things once BOOK Enda Walsh MUSIC AND LYRICS Glen Hansard and Markta Irglov Based on the motion picture, written and directed by John Carney THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP
NEW YORK
2012 Once book is copyright 2012 by Enda Walsh
Once music and lyrics are copyright 2012 by Glen Hansard and Markta Irglov Preface is copyright 2012 by Enda Walsh (previously published as liner notes to the CD for Once) Once is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156, by special arrangement with Nick Hern Books Limited All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author representatives: (professional performing rights) Curtis Brown Ltd, Haymarket House, 2829 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP, 44 (0)20 7396 0110 (fax), Copyright/rights information for the individual songs may be found at the back of the book. The publication of Once by Enda Walsh, Glen Hansard and Markta Irglov through TCGs Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Walsh, Enda.
Once / Book, Enda Walsh; Music and Lyrics, Glen Hansard and Markta
Irglov. First Edition.
pages cm
eISBN 978-1-55936-768-4
I. Hansard, Glen, 1970 composer. II. Irglov, Markta, 1988 composer.
III.

Title.
PR6123.A46O53 2012
822.92c23 2012039810 Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
Cover art by SpotCo First Edition, December 2012

I n April 2011 our production of Once was coming together in of all placesthe basement of a church at Harvard! The plan was to workshop the script thereto learn the music and songsto get a sense of the staging and to perform in a small theater for a week and gauge what the hell we had. We were to do this in a packed three-week rehearsal periodin the basement of a church! (I mentioned that, right?) It should have been soul-destroying, exhausting work, but it really was the opposite. Ive never experienced such a creative environment beforesuch a positive rehearsal room. I used to turn up and sit there in awe of our director John Tiffany and movement director Steven Hoggett and watch as they whipped scenes out of thin air. Then our musical director Martin Lowe would floor me daily with his speed of thought, his amazingly concise direction and thunderous energy. I wanted to bottle the three of them up, freeze them and unleash them on my geriatric self some time in my sad future.

I was lucky to be there. But I think we all felt that. From the start it was always our idea to create an ensemble. Its something thats inherent in all theater productions of course but we wanted that to be our central philosophy. A cast of actors/musicians that would tell this delicate love story and would operate as a collective where one person cant work without the otherwhere the group is more powerful than the individualwhere the alchemy of different instruments, different voices can hit the air and become something gorgeous. It was an idea, a hope and somewhere in the castingin the actors decisions to put themselves forwarda quite extraordinary collection of individuals gathered.

It was sort of divine and probably right that we were rehearsing below a church! So we had each other, had a sweet love story that was finding its stage voiceand we had these songs. Im not musicalin that I cant play an instrument. I can belt out a song but its not singing as suchits more short bursts of vocalization that I call singing but its not. Anyone whos seen my karaoke will vouch for that. Im a shouter. Its a mystery to me still how a song comes together.

Story is my thing. Im sure to many people writing a play is as baffling as songwriting is to me. But its the frailty of a three-minute songthe concise honesty of that expressionthat it happens so fully for such a short amount of time. That amazes me. Glen and Markta have carved out these powerful moments of honesty so completely. Whatever happened during the creation of these songs remains still.

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