‘Once’: Come early; show starts before the show starts

There’s something different about “Once” from the moment you enter the Playhouse on Rodney Square in Wilmington.

Audience members are allowed to congregate on the stage, with its mirror-lined Irish pub set. Gradually, music begins to play as members of the cast join them with guitars to sing Irish folk songs, first with no (or minimal) mic.

As more performers join the stage to sing and play, the music gets louder and more rousing. The audience leaves the stage, and they continue to play. The house lights are still on.

Then, as Sam Cieri begins to sing the show’s true opening number, a heartbreaker called “Leave,” the lights go down.

In other words, come early to get the most out of this show. The pre-show is as good as the show itself.

The Playhouse wraps up its 2016-2017 season of Broadway in Wilmington with “Once,” the hit musical by John Carney.

Like December’s “Kinky Boots,” it’s a relatively new musical – it premiered off-Broadway in 2011 – based on a movie, adding balance to the throwbacks (“Rent,” “Riverdance”) and updated revivals (“Pippin,” “Cinderella”).

“Once” is a love story about a depressed struggling Dublin musician (Cieri) and a Czech immigrant woman (Mackenzie Lesser-Roy), who sees all of his potential when no one else does. It’s a bittersweet story that is as much about loss as it is about love, but, really, the story is just a backdrop, a vehicle for the music and lyrics of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.

With songs like “Falling Slowly,” “The Moon,” and “Sleeping,” the music boasts an Oscar and a Grammy on top of the many Tonys it gathered in 2012.

The music is so integral to the show that the actors double as the orchestra, each one playing at least one instrument, from guitar to fiddle to accordion, right on stage.

When “Girl” (Lesser-Roy) starts playing “Falling Slowly” on the piano, she’s really playing. When not in a scene, cast members sit on chairs lining either side of the stage, where they play their instruments and sing. It’s one of the coolest things about the show.

The show employs some clever details, such as the use of Czech subtitles over the stage when characters speaking English are actually speaking Czech, making Girl’s point of view easily relatable.

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The set is static, with tables and chairs added and removed as scenes change. One second they’re in a music shop; a step and a turn later, they’re in Guy’s father’s house, and it comes off seamlessly.

And that is how a simple boy-meets-girl story becomes much more.

Holly Quinn is a Wilmington freelance writer.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: "Once" at The Playhouse on Rodney Square

WHEN: Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Chemours Building, 1007 N. Market St., Wilmington

TICKETS: $45 - $120; duponttheatre.com.