On the morning of July 29, just hours after Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle crash on the outskirts of Dublin, a group of people roughly 4,500 miles away in Utah began to text each other.
Throughout the world, fans were mourning the unexpected loss of the 56-year-old artist — who started out busking in his teens and years later would co-write the Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly” for the indie film “Once.”
For this particular group of people in Utah, Hansard’s death felt especially surreal.
Just two weeks earlier, they had kicked off a production of the musical “Once” — based on the 2007 Sundance film starring Hansard and his music partner, Markéta Irglová — at the CenterPoint Theatre in Centerville. Now, on the morning of Hansard’s death, they were processing the unique situation of bringing his music to life that very night at the theater.
“It was just devastating,” Ryan Boam, who plays the recording studio manager Eamon in the musical, told the Deseret News three hours before a performance in early August. “But it was also a really good moment for us to come together as a cast and as a group of musicians.”
As they grieved and messaged each other clips of Hansard, the cast prepared to take the stage for what would undoubtedly be one of the most memorable performances of their careers.
“There was a real magic in the air,” Boam said.
‘It was just crazy to be in the middle of it’
At the time of Hansard’s death, CenterPoint Theatre might have been the only regional theater in North America playing “Once.”
Productions in Flagstaff, Arizona, and North Carolina began a couple of weeks later, in mid-August.
“It was just crazy to be in the middle of it, and to be so connected to him and Markéta Irglová just because this story, it’s their story in a lot of ways,” Lindsea Garside, who takes on Irglová’s lead role from the film in the CenterPoint production, told the Deseret News.
“It’s crazy to mourn somebody that you don’t know,” she continued. “But at the same time, people who listen to or watch or take in in any way an artist’s art, we do know them in some way. I’ve never known an artist who doesn’t put themselves into their work.”
Garside has loved Hansard’s music for a while — ever since she picked out “Once” in the new indie film section at a Blockbuster.
When she found out CenterPoint would be putting on “Once,” she was determined to be in the show.
The story of a heartbroken Irish busker, who finds renewed passion for life and music through a blunt but caring young Czech mother, tugged on her heartstrings. Garside also appreciated that in the musical adaptation — which won the Tony Award for best musical in 2012 — the cast members double as an orchestra, playing their instruments onstage throughout the production.
It was the push Garside needed to return to the piano. She had played into her teens, but eventually, life got in the way and she lost that part of herself. She’s now been in piano lessons for a little over a year.
Boam also had a strong desire to be in the show.
Already aware of Hansard thanks to the movie “The Commitments” and his work with the Irish rock band The Frames, Boam watched “Once” when it first came out on DVD. He and his wife loved it so much they performed the duet “Falling Slowly” at a talent show not long after.
“I just had to audition,” he said. “I couldn’t miss out on this show.”
The love he has for “Once” took on a form of reverence the night of Hansard’s death — and in the days since, Boam said.
“I feel like it’s kind of a spiritual experience to pay tribute to him,” he said.
For Garside, Hansard’s death made her hyperaware of appreciating the musical.
“I think we already had this sense of cherishing every moment because we love this show, and then it’s like, holy cow, life itself is so fleeting,” she said. “And now we feel like we’re paying homage in a sense to Glen, and honoring him, and so we really wanted to do that justice.”
Theater lives in the surreal space of being simultaneously finite and infinite, Garside said. Infinite in how it can impact the audience, but finite because no performance is ever the same.
“You make a painting, and the painting could be around forever. You make a movie, and the movie could be around forever. A song could last forever, but theater is so special because it exists in one time, for however long,” she said.
While the audience at the theater on the Wednesday night of Hansard’s death might not have perceived much of a difference, for the cast, the significance of it all was palpable and made for a truly once-in-a-lifetime kind of performance.
A ‘Once’-in-a-lifetime performance
Garside got emotional as she reflected on the hours leading up to that Wednesday night performance.
As the cast gathered together before the show, Marissa Olson, the stage manager who is a big Hansard fan, encouraged the actors to embrace the moment, and the bittersweet opportunity it presented.
“She said the best way we could honor him is by doing what he spent his life doing, which is sharing his music,” Garside said. “That was his life endeavor, to make music and share his music with people, to give music to the world.”
Ahead of the Wednesday performance, Boam created the words “For Glen” out of bright green gaff tape and stuck it on the back of his guitar. After the curtain call, he held his guitar up in the air — an emotional tribute he said was likely more for the cast than those in the audience.
“My guitar sits backstage with the back facing out, and so as we pass by, everybody gets to kind of see that message,” he said. “And I hope it fills us with a little extra energy to pay tribute to him every night.”
CenterPoint’s production, which runs through Tuesday night, has now unexpectedly become a way for Hansard fans in Utah to simultaneously mourn the artist and celebrate his music. But it has also provided a chance for some theatergoers to discover Hansard and Irglova’s acclaimed songwriting that permeates the musical.
“It’s tragic to me that now it’s learning about a person who used to make art instead of a person who’s currently making art,” Garside said. “But I do think we felt extra honored to be performing his work.”
Hansard’s death has deepened the CenterPoint cast’s desire to do the musical justice, but it hasn’t changed anything about their actual performance night after night. From the start, it was always about putting a spotlight on the raw, storytelling quality of Hansard’s music that made the artist so beloved in the folk singer-songwriter scene.
“I think upfront we created something that we feel like still holds up even after this loss, which is honestly really great to be able to say,” Garside said. “We all did our best and we have continued to do our best.”