NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Broadway musical version of the Irish love story “Once” about a Dublin busker and Czech piano player who share a passion for music and an impossible attraction to each other gained the highest number of Tony Award nominations announced on Tuesday.

The intimate stage musical, adapted from the hit 2006 indie Irish film and featuring the Oscar-winning song, “Falling Slowly,” gained 11 nominations, including nods for its main stars, Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After writing an opera, recreating Judy Garland’s classic Carnegie Hall show and performing one concert tour dressed, in his words, as a crazed feathered ghost, Rufus Wainwright is edging toward pop’s mainstream.

The experimental singer-songwriter has teamed with popular British DJ and music producer Mark Ronson, who helped create Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” for what is being touted as Wainwright’s most commercial album yet, “Out of the Game,” released in the United States on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “War Witch,” a sensitive drama about a 12-year-old girl abducted by vicious armed rebels in sub-Saharan Africa, and a nonfiction film that examines the plight of women in modern India, won the top awards at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.

“War Witch” picked up the jury prize for best narrative feature and best actress for Rachel Mwanza who plays the girl forced to become a child soldier, while “The World Before Her” that parallels women in the Miss India beauty pageant and a fundamentalist Hindu girls camp won best documentary.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “War Witch,” a sensitive drama about a 12-year-old girl abducted by vicious armed rebels in sub-Saharan Africa, and a nonfiction film that examines the plight of women in modern India won the top awards at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.

“War Witch” picked up the jury prize for best narrative feature and best actress for Rachel Mwanza who plays the girl forced to become a child soldier, while “The World Before Her” that parallels women in the Miss India beauty pageant and a fundamentalist Hindu girls camp won best documentary.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Iraqis living in danger after working with U.S. troops and diplomats and an examination of women in modern India are two subjects grabbing the attention of critics and audiences among documentaries showing at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.

Both films are part of a lineup of 32 documentaries at the New York festival, which runs through Sunday, that tell true tales from inside and outside the United States. Documentaries, which have become more stylized in recent years with inexpensive hi-tech cameras, have traditionally been a strength at Tribeca. This year is no exception, and many of these non-fiction movies will be seen in theaters and on TV throughout 2012.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – At age 40, Arnel Pineda lived every wannabe rock star’s dream, middle-aged fan’s fantasy and even one poor country’s hope for financial success.

A little more than five years ago, as videos of Pineda performing Journey cover tunes played on YouTube, he sat at home in the Philippines on the verge of giving up his dream of a singing and songwriting career.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lighthearted romantic comedy opened New York’s Tribeca film festival on Wednesday bringing some crowd-pleasing laughs and a smattering of red carpet glamour before audiences settle into 12 days of mostly independent cinema.

The premiere of “The Five-Year Engagement,” starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, by the same team behind “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” kicked off the festival which is entering its second decade with organizers promising a broader quality of films from all regions of the world.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Disappointed book lovers and the publishing world lashed out on Tuesday at the refusal to declare a Pulitzer fiction winner, saying it would hurt sales and gave the impression that 2011 was a bad year for novels.

Monday’s lack of a decision by the Pulitzer board could also hurt an industry accused of fixing prices for e-books, critics said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off this week with a greater emphasis on independent foreign films in competition, stars such as Justin Bieber on red carpets and a broader overall program heading into its second decade.

The festival, one of the largest in the United States and co-founded by Robert De Niro as a way to revive downtown Manhattan after the September 11 attacks, opens on Wednesday with high-profile Hollywood comedy, “The Five-Year Engagement” starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York literary agent Bill Clegg’s first memoir counted down two months spent blowing $70,000 on a binge of crack cocaine and male escorts in New York’s boutique hotels while avoiding loved ones and the publishing agency he built and owned.

His newest book begins where the first left off with a new goal of 90 days. But this time around, Clegg is not out to kill himself with endless sleep-deprived, paranoid nights on cocaine. Instead, it’s an account of getting sober and a journey of relapse and recovery.