| Once on This Island | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Production Logo | |
| Music | Stephen Flaherty |
| Lyrics | Lynn Ahrens |
| Book | Lynn Ahrens |
| Basis | My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy |
| Productions | 1990 Broadway 1994 UK/Europe 1995 West End 2009 UK revival 2017 Broadway revival 2019 National Tour 2022 Hong Kong |
| Awards | 1995 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical 2018 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical |
Once on This Island is a coming-of-age one-act stage musical with a book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. It is based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, a Caribbean-set retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Little Mermaid.[1] It concerns a peasant girl in the French Antilles who falls in love with a rich boy and makes a deal with the gods to save his life.
The original Broadway production ran from 1990 to 1991, and the West End production opened in 1994, where it won the 1995 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. The musical was revived on Broadway in a production that opened on December 3, 2017 at the Circle in the Square Theatre. The revival was showered with critical acclaim, with New York Times critic Jesse Green describing it as "ravishing"[2] and The Huffington Post praising it for creating "an aesthetic experience unlike anything seen on Broadway."[3] It won the 2018 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.[4]
A Disney film adaptation is currently in development for Disney+.[5]
- ^ Thomas, Ebony Elisabeth (2019). The Dark Fantastic. NYU Press. p. 196.
- ^ Green, Jesse (January 6, 2019). "Review: 'Once on This Island,' Revived and Ravishing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
- ^ Lewis, Christian (December 3, 2017). "'Once On This Island' Revival Creates an Aesthetic Experience". HuffPost. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
- ^ Sullivan, Lindsey (June 10, 2018). "Once On This Island Wins 2018 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival". broadway.com. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
- ^ Mcphee, Ryan (July 30, 2020). "Film Adaptation of Once On This Island in the Works at Disney+". Playbill.