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Irish playwright Enda Walsh, who wrote the book for the theatrical adaptation of Carney’s film “Once,” has written the book for the new show. And Like “Once,” about a busking folk musician, “Sing Street” is also set in Dublin — albeit in the wild-haired mid-1980s.
The show, about a teenager who starts a band to impress a girl, will have music and lyrics by Carney and Gary Clark, who was the frontman of the Scottish pop band Danny Wilson, which got its start around the time that “Sing Street” is set.
Rebecca Taichman, who won a Tony Award in 2017 for her production of Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” is slated to direct.
The new musical has big shoes to fill. After a run in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “Once” debuted off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop in 2011. Transferring to Broadway, the production played 1,167 regular performances and won eight Tony Awards, including best musical, best direction of a musical (for John Tiffany) and best book of a musical, for Walsh. (His adaptation of the novel “Grief is the Thing With Feathers” just opened at St. Ann’s Warehouse.)
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The theater’s upcoming season will also include “Sanctuary City,” a new play by Martyna Majok, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for “Cost of Living.” The play will be directed by Rebecca Frecknall, who is fresh off the success of her London production of Tennessee Williams’ “Summer and Smoke,” which won an Olivier Award earlier this month.
“Sanctuary City” centers on a newly naturalized teenager’s decision to marry her undocumented friend. It was originally slated to debut as part of the theater’s 2018-19 season, but subsequently postponed. In an email, the theater cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for the delay.
Also featured in the season are “Runboyrun” and “In Old Age,” a pair of plays by Mfoniso Udofia that are part of “The Ufot Cycle,” a series of her plays that focus on a single family in examining the history of Nigerian immigration in America. They will be directed by Loretta Greco and Awoye Timpo. Another pair of plays from the cycle had their New York debuts at New York Theater Workshop in 2016.
Two more productions for the theater’s season will be announced at a later date.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.