NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

e has seen the movie, and Ms. Milioti said she cou
ld vouch that it is among his top five favorite fi
lms of all time.
Mr. Kazee’s affection for the film proved unnervin
g, however, when he was offered the role of Guy, h
e said. He recalled an earlier experience playing
Lancelot in the Broadway musical “Spamalot,” which
was based on the film “Monty Python and the Holy
Grail.” John Cleese had played Lancelot in that mo
vie, but Mr. Kazee said he was determined “to do m
y own thing.”
“I did, and you could hear crickets in the audienc
e every night, I think because people expected me
to be word-perfect Monty Python,” Mr. Kazee said.
“You have to balance being yourself and paying som
e tribute to the original. Still, when we started
working on this musical, I was scared I’d muck it
up. I didn’t want to be the guy who was responsibl
e for doing the first bad thing to ‘Once.’ ”
The movie, which was shot in 17 days on a $150,000
budget, was rejected by several film festivals un
til a scout for the Sundance Film Festival picked
it up after a screening in Galway. “Once” emerged
as an unexpected audience favorite at Sundance and
was bought for $500,000 by Fox Searchlight Pictur
es; the movie went on to gross more than $20 million.
The musical adaptation follows the plot of the fil
m and its frustrated romance (when they meet, both
Guy and Girl have other love interests), but the
stage version fleshes out several characters and s
ubplots that were barely featured in the movie. Su
ch adaptations as “Shrek the Musical” and “Catch M
e if You Can” have struggled on Broadway in recent
years, especially when they have hewed too closel
y to the films.
Mr. Kazee and Ms. Milioti said trying to recreate
the loose, casual feel of the film scenes would be