Rupert Holmes has, in fact, written/cowritten two musical scores since Drood--an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Patti LuPone recorded "My Son" years ago--although the show remains unproduced, there was a reading of it in NYC in 2002 or thereabouts) and The Nutty Professor (Marvin Hamlisch's music, but Holmes wrote the lyrics). (He also began work at one point on a musical titled Swing, which he abandoned and eventually recycled into a terrific novel of the same name, which included a CD with several pieces of music that figured into the plot--one of which, oddly enough, was based on a cut song from Drood.)
In the case of Once, the primary writers didn't even really contribute to the stage version--the only completely new song, "Abandoned in Bandon," was written by other writers, and while there were songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová that were in the musical but not in the film, they were taken from their pop work and not newly written.
Seth, knower of more things |