TV Special: 2012 Tony Nominees - Enda Walsh on the Risk of Bringing ONCE to Broadway

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BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge was thrilled to sit down and speak with nearly all of this year's Tony Award nominees at the official Tony Brunch on May 2, 2012, and we will be bringing you special coverage on all of them throughout the awards season.  Today we bring you Enda Walsh, nominee for Best Book of a Musical for Once.  

Walsh's main breakthrough came with the production of his play Disco Pigs in collaboration with director Pat Kiernan of Corcadorca. Since then he moved to London, where he has been particularly prolific over the past six years, bringing his productions to seventeen stage plays, two radio plays and three screenplays. His plays, notably Disco Pigs, Bedbound, Small Things, Chatroom, New Electric Ballroom and The Walworth Farce, have been translated into more than 20 languages and have had productions throughout Europe and in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. He has written two radio plays, with Four Big Days in the Life of Dessie Banks for RTÉ winning the PPI Award for Best Radio Drama (2001) and The Monotonous Life of Little Miss P for the BBC commended at the Berlin Prix Europa (2003). His commissioned work includes plays for Paines Plough in London, the Druid Theatre in Galway, the Kammerspiele in Munich and the Royal National Theatre's Connections Project in London.

ONCE opened at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Sunday, March 18, 2012. ONCE features a book by award-winning Irish playwright & screenwriter, Enda Walsh (Penelope, Hunger, The New Electric Ballroom), the Academy Award-winning music and lyrics of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, and direction by the acclaimed John Tiffany (Black Watch).The cast of ONCE features Steve Kazee as 'Guy' and Cristin Milioti as 'Girl.' Also in the company are David Abeles, Will Connolly, Elizabeth A. Davis, David PatRick Kelly, Anne L. Nathan, Lucas Papaelias, Ripley Sobo, Andy Taylor, Mckayla Twiggs, Erikka Walsh, Paul Whitty, and J.Michael Zygo.

The Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 10, 2012. 

Click here for the complete list of nominations! Click here for the nominations by the numbers. 

Video filmed and Edited by Jonathan Frank