Once, the much-loved 2007 Irish indie, was kind of the little movie musical that could. Made on a shoestring budget in Dublin, it starred songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova as thinly veiled versions of themselves, and it was as much about the love of making music as it was about the budding but unfulfilled love between the two central characters.

With a soundtrack filled with attractive contemporary folk music, the film became a cult hit, grossing $20 million worldwide — and the pivotal song "Falling Slowly" won an Academy Award for Irglova and Hansard.

"We made this film two years ago, we shot on two handi-cams, it took us three weeks to make, we made it for a hundred grand," said a clearly stunned Hansard at the Oscar ceremony. "We never thought we'd ever come into a room like this and be in front of you people."

'A Delicate Little Story'

Now, Hansard and Irglova's idiosyncratic movie has been turned into an equally idiosyncratic piece of theater — by an entirely different team of collaborators. Director John Tiffany and choreographer Stephen Hoggett created Black Watch, an indelible theater piece about a Scottish regiment in Iraq; they're working with the Dublin-bred playwright Enda Walsh, known for kaleidoscopically language-rich plays with a fierce and vivid sense of place and culture.

<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/12/06/143147174/once-and-again-a-love-story-gets-a-second-life">Listen to the story on NPR</a>

One of the most passionate and moving films about music I have ever seen. Marketa was only 17 when this movie was made. If you haven't seen it please do yourself a favor and make it happen. I'm already thinking about my trip to NYC to see this show. 

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/theater/the-film-once-becomes-a-new-york-musical.html">More from the New York Times</a>

