Once - 2012 Tonys Question!

[BCfitasafiddle]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 8:33pm

Hi all!

Hope everyone and their families and loved ones are staying well (physically, mentally, spiritually). Sending well wishes to you all.

I had a question I have been thinking a lot about lately and I feel as though I once knew the answer (if there even was one), but now I can't remember for the life of me and have found some misleading info (to me, at least).

When Once opened in 2012 and swept the Tonys that year, it didn't win Best Original Score. Newsies did. In fact, if I recall correctly, Bonnie and Clyde was the only other musical nominated in the category. The other two were straight plays. 

My first thought was "Perhaps the ratio of new music for the musical wasn't large enough compared to the recycled music from the original film?" But then I saw it was nominated for Best Music and Best Lyrics at the Drama Desks, and won for Music. 

Was this a Tony eligibility ruling? Were they simply just not nominated because of lack of votes and it's as simple as that?

I'm just curious! Not every Tony winning musical (unless it's a jukebox show) is not nominated for a category like that.

Would love to hear if anyone has recollection or access to any other info. Or just confirm it's a simple answer!

Thanks, all! :)

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 8:37pm

I'm interested in this two. I saw the movie it's based on, and I'm pretty sure the only song they wrote for Broadway is "Abandoned in Bandon".

[JBroadway]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 8:42pm

As per the official eligibility announcement from that year:

“ Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová will not be eligible in the category of Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics Written for the Theatre) for the score of Once.”

So yes, they were ineligible. And it was presumably because there just wasn’t enough new music. Not sure what happened with the Drama Desks, but they are a separate awards body who make their own rules.

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 8:43pm

Once was ruled ineligible because of the amount of music taken from the movie.  There were obviously similar questions around Newsies, but ultimately the Tonys ruled enough of Newsies' Broadway score was original that it could be eligible, but that Once didn't have enough original music to be eligible.

However, there were other musicals eligible for score that year (such as Leap of Faith and Ghost) that were completely overlooked in the score category in place of a couple of plays.  So all in all probably the weakest year for score on Broadway (except maybe the year when Sunset Boulevard was literally the only eligible score, so the Tony was just handed to Lloyd Webber).

[trentsketch]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 8:54pm

The 2011-2012 season was an odd one for original musicals. Half of the new musicals that opened were adapted scores. The other half were critically panned original score musicals.

There were only a handful of new songs in Once: Abandoned in Bandon, the song in Czech, and The Moon. Everything else was adapted from the songs in the Once movie. It was ruled ineligible for Original Score. 

Newsies was also adapted, but featured enough new songs to be eligible. I can't remember the exact percentage of new material required for the Original Score nomination, but Newsies easily cleared it while Once would have needed another song or two to qualify.

Bonnie & Clyde was the only fully original score musical to be nominated that season. Leap of Faith, Spider-Man, and Ghost all failed to be nominated with fully original scores. 

Peter & the Starcatcher and One Man, Two Guvnors were also nominated for Original Score that year. They were both plays with original music and scoring. Both of these plays featured a whole lot more singing onstage than we're used to seeing in modern plays. One Man, Two Guvnors, in particular, had a whole lot of original songs for a non-musical: 13 and two reprises to be exact. I was actually rooting for it in the category. Those songs were great and added so much to the telling of the story.

[BCfitasafiddle]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 9:39pm

Interesting. Thanks, everyone!

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 7/22/20 at 9:43pm

trentsketch said: "...Peter & the Starcatcher and One Man, Two Guvnors were also nominated for Original Score that year. They were both plays with original music and scoring. Both of these plays featured a whole lot more singing onstage than we're used to seeing in modern plays. One Man, Two Guvnors, in particular, had a whole lot of original songs for a non-musical: 13 and two reprises to be exact. I was actually rooting for it in the category. Those songs were great and added so much to the telling of the story."

I find this interesting because there's a solid argument for why Once could be considered a play with music. If I recall, almost every song in the show is diegetic (meaning the character is really playing and singing the song in the world of the story).

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 7/23/20 at 4:52pm

trentsketch said: "Newsies was also adapted, but featured enough new songs to be eligible. I can't remember the exact percentage of new material required for the Original Score nomination, but Newsies easily cleared it while Once would have needed another song or two to qualify."

Newsies also featured new lyrics and additional melodies to the songs written for the movie. Anyone who only knows the movie will have a hard time singing along to the cast album. I believe the percentage is 50% new material (or 51%), and the committee deemed the material in Newsies over half original.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 7/23/20 at 5:40pm

Absolutely, HeyMrMusic. Newsies had a brand new book and retooled the whole score. I just remember there being like a lot of "But Newsies is eligible" commentary when Once was not allowed to compete in Original Score. 

I heard a lot of, "Once is a play with music," almost as much as I heard, "well actually, Peter and the Starcatcher IS a musical" that season. And then One Man, Two Guvnors is just hanging out with its interstitial skiffle songs played by a live band onstage because you can do anything with a commedia. 

Fun fact about the Once score: there was actually a movement to get it disqualified from the Best Original Song race at the Oscars when it won for Falling Slowly. The song technically got released on a Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova side project album before Once was made (but after they had already written the songs for the film), so some critics and songwriters were objecting to its eligibility as an original song written for the film.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 7/23/20 at 6:10pm

@trentsketch

I was in the "Once is a Play with Music" camp for a while there. In a way I still think the case for it is valid. But actually, in the last couple of year, the boundaries between the two categories have been blurring more and more, which I think is great. And as the boundaries blur, I find myself inclined to be much looser with my personal definition of what it means for something to be a "musical." These days, I tend to think that if a show uses singing and/or dancing as a central storytelling tool, it can kind of fall under the "musical" umbrella, even it fits most traditional definitions of a "play with music" or even a "ballet." I still think a show can be a play with music without considering it a musical, but I also think a lot of shows could be categorized as both. For me, it depends on how the songs are used. For example, I personally wouldn't categorize Starcatcher or Guvnors under the "musical umbrella." Categorizing art can be very subjective though, so it's all up to interpretation. Also, when it comes to the Tonys, I think it's fair to go with the artists' chosen categorization. The show is subtitled "A New Musical," so it's only fair to consider it one for awards' purposes. 

Also, I love the phrase "interstitial skiffle" 

Interesting fun fact about the Oscars. There are other cases like that too, some of which are pretty ridiculous, and some didn't end up in the movie's favor. Like how "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge was disqualified because it was technically written for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, even though it didn't even end up getting used in that film - not even in the credits, or as a bonus track on the soundtrack. 

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 7/24/20 at 11:09am

JBroadway said: "@trentsketch

I was in the "Once is a Play with Music" camp for a while there. In a way I still think the case for it is valid. But actually, in the last couple of year, the boundaries between the two categories have been blurring more and more, which I think is great. And as the boundaries blur, I find myself inclined to be much looser withmy personaldefinition of what it means for something to be a "musical." These days, I tend to think that if a showuses singing and/or dancingas a central storytelling tool, it can kind of fall under the "musical" umbrella, even it fits most traditional definitions of a "play with music" or even a "ballet." I still think a show can be a play with music without considering it a musical, but I also think a lot of shows could be categorized as both. For me, it depends on how the songs are used. For example, I personally wouldn't categorize Starcatcher or Guvnors under the "musical umbrella." Categorizing art can be very subjective though, so it's all up to interpretation. Also, when it comes to the Tonys, I think it's fair to go with the artists' chosen categorization. The show is subtitled "A New Musical,"so it's only fair to consider it one for awards'purposes."

I think the difficulty with distinguishing plays and musicals now is that the modern musical is often much more constructed with the idea of completely blending the musical numbers into the story.  Obviously shows from the Golden Age of musicals tended to have huge chorus numbers as well as solo numbers that clearly distinguished themselves from the scenes in the show (pause scene-song-resume scene).  Even some of the shows in the 70s and 80s and further that really started using song to advance the plot still had those moments (Follies still had "Who's That Woman" as one example).  So now that shows are often eliminating those big moments, it's becoming harder to distinguish what should be classified as a play that occasionally uses music and what is actually a musical.  I agree "Once" was a musical, but you could also absolutely make the argument that "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" was (or vice versa).

[ImaginaryManticore]

Posted: 7/24/20 at 4:42pm

With Once, I'd also argue that the staging and actor-musician concept pushed it towards being a musical, more than the film was. Yes, the characters were singing to each other, but the musicians were onstage as well even when they weren't part of the scene, kind of as if they were a dancing or singing chorus.

Of course, that happens with plays that have songs too, when the songs aren't as linked to the story, like in War Horse. Hmmm.

The difference is also probably to do with how involved the composer and lyricist are. If it's a play with songs, you could probably switch out the score with a new one by new writers and still have the same play.