ONCE Closes on Broadway Today; Heads to Melbourne, Seoul, and Toronto Next

The Best Musical Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning global sensation Once will play its final Broadway performance today, January 4, 2015. As of today, the musical will have played 1,167 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 swept the other major awards winning Best Musical from the New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards and set a new weekly gross sales box office record at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

ONCE is the winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

An Australian production of Once opened in Melbourne to rave reviews on this past weekend. Later this year the US tour will play a multi-week engagement in Japan commencing in late November and the first non-English language production will open in Seoul, South Korea in December. A Toronto production will open in February, 2015.

Also in development are productions in Sweden, Brazil, Holland, Greece, The Czech Republic, Thailand, Ireland, along with a Japanese language production.

Based on the 2007 Academy Award-winning film, Once opened to rave reviews on March 18, 2012 following engagements at New York Theatre Workshop and in Cambridge, MA.

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, direction by the acclaimed John Tiffany (The Glass Menagerie, Black Watch), movement by Steven Hoggett (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time, Black Watch, American Idiot) and music supervision and orchestrations by Martin Lowe (Mamma Mia!).

The current cast of Once on Broadway features Paul Alexander Nolan as 'Guy' and Jessie Fisher as 'Girl.' Also in the company are 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 (previews began March 6, 2013) after premiering to critical acclaim in Dublin, Ireland in February, 2013. ONCE will complete its run in the West End on March 21, 2015 prior to going on European Tour. Ronan Keating will play 'Guy' and Jill Winternitz will play 'Girl' from November 17, 2014 to the end of the engagement.

ONCE is also playing to rave reviews in cities across the country on a US national tour which was launched in the Fall of 2013.

The London production of Once won two 2014 Olivier Awards and the US National Tour received a 2014 Elliot Norton Award nomination for Outstanding Musical Production. The hit musical has now amassed 51 award nominations and 24 awards from around the world.

Featuring an impressive ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage,ONCE 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.

The Grammy Award-winning original cast recording of Once is available via MASTERWORKS BROADWAY, a label of Sony Masterworks. Visit www.MasterworksBroadway.com for more information.

ONCE is 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.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus