Admit it. Part of you wants the Broadway musical version of “The Notebook” to feature a chorus line of singing, high-kicking dancing, larger-than-life notebooks, maybe doing duets with gigantic pencils. There’s no fear of that happening in this measured, moody, highly romantic and genuine tearjerking musical. Yet just thinking about which musical theater tropes would ruin an adaptation of one of the most popular romance novels of the past 30 years helps you notice what traps this clever adaptation avoids.
“The Notebook,” with a book by Bekah Brunstetter and songs by pop star Ingrid Michaelson, opened The Bushnell’s 2025 -26 Broadway series and is running through Sunday. The musical, which was both a best-selling novel and a cult hit movie, draws from both and adds its own fresh elements, like moving the timeline of the love story so it starts in the 1960s rather than the 1940s and ends in the present day rather than the ‘90s.
Nicholas Sparks’ novel was distinctive for having its love story unfold over a long period of time and told in pieces that don’t always seem to fit together until they did. The movie had to take a more conventional storytelling path but added a nice visual concept of having the central relationship between the longtime lovers Allie and Noah be depicted by two separate pairs of stars, one young and one old. The musical goes further with the casting. There are now three Noahs and three Allies, underscoring how much these characters change from their teens to their late 20s to their senior years, and how distinct and separate these parts of their life stories are. Showing their ages really helps the drama of how they begin, interrupt, restart and conclude their time together. They interact more realistically since we can see how they’ve lived and grown.
But there’s even a fourth perspective, since Michaelson’s songs translate the gist of each key scene into a moving poetic reflection. Hers are not the kind of musical theater songs that move the plot forward or explain or illustrate. They crystallize what has just happened onstage into purer, more artistic insights.
Key moments in Allie and Noah’s lives include the day they meet (he’s a poetry-reading townie who works in his dad’s lumberyard, she’s a budding artist on vacation with her wealthy parents), the day that their magical summer ends (with lovemaking and police sirens), their abrupt reunion a decade later and the time in later life when their time together is complicated by health problems.
Chloë Cheers and Connecticut native Kyle Mangold bring innocence and beaming joy-filled expressions of young love to the youngest Allie/Noah combo. As the characters in their late 20s, Alysha Deslorieux and Ken Wulf Clark have the best singing voices in the show and the widest range of emotions to express. All phases of Allie and Noah get excitable, but it’s “Middle Allie” and “Middle Noah” who have the only angry argument, solve some distressing mysteries about what kept them apart and provide the iconic clinging kiss-in-the-rain image from the poster of the movie version of “The Notebook.” Deslorieux and Clark modulate these shifts from exasperation to confusion to ardor gracefully.
Beau Gravitte and Sharon Catherine Brown as Older Noah and Older Allie in “The Notebook” at The Bushnell. The musical, based on the romantic novel and movie, uses three couples to dramatize the stages of an epic romance. (Roger Mastroianni)
For the critical roles of “Older Allie” and “Older Noah,” the first national tour of “The Notebook” has enlisted two seasoned actors with many credits. Sharon Catherine Brown has been on Broadway and on tour many times, has done sitcoms and soap operas and was even a talking marijuana joint in the movie “Half Baked.” Her previous Connecticut appearance was as the motherly Marilla in the new “Anne of Green Gables” musical at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2022. Ridgefield resident Beau Gravitte is the former artistic director of the illustrious theater organization The Actors Studio. Like Brown, he has done dramas, comedies, musicals and everything else. Both performers bring a wealth of experience and great emotional depth to Allie and Noah’s final days.
There’s a strong ensemble of mostly young actors portraying supporting characters whose roles were deliberately kept small but significant in the book and only slightly expanded in the film. These include childhood friends, health care workers and family members. A physical therapist named Johnny, amiably played by Connor Richardson, gets quite a lot to do and provides much-needed comic relief during the dark late-life scenes.
They may all be playing versions of the same characters but “The Notebook” is elegantly written so that the three eras behave like separate self-contained plays that are cohesively woven together. Michaelson’s songs are similar in how they can stand alone or add to the grander unified power of the “The Notebook” as a whole. They are love songs, intimately connected to key phrases in the lovers’ conversations like “I Paint,” “Leave the Light On” and of course “Carry Me Home.”
The scenic design by David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis emphasize weathered wooden walls — the youngest Allie and Noah fantasize about fixing up an old house together. The lighting design by Ben Stanton features long glowing rods hanging from the ceiling like giant upside down candles.
The costume design by Paloma Young is one of the ways the different Allies and Noahs are most clearly connected with their past or future selves: The outfits seem to fit the ages of the characters while conforming to the tastes in colors and comfort that a person would carry with them throughout a long life. Young’s costumes also don’t shout “1960s!” or “time-conscious fashion trend!” They’re work clothes and nice dresses and what you’d have in your wardrobe at an assisted living facility. The actors look normal in these clothes, and that naturalness helps ease the audience into the closeness of their relationships.
The designers are in synch with famed director Michael Greif (who did the original Broadway productions of “Rent,” “Next to Normal” and “Dear Evan Hansen”), who is really good at shows about children having trouble breaking free of parental control and peer pressure.
Modern romance is tough to stage. It’s easy to fall into cliches and hard to make people care in the first place. “The Notebook The Musical” hits you with waves of lifelong soulmate-level love from all sides. It’s intoxicating. You could see people leaving The Bushnell on Tuesday’s opening night with tears in their eyes. This is a special, nuanced, theatrically rich, musical, passionate, psychologically profound show. It’s a nice balance to some of the heavier-handed, more fun-filled fare on The Bushnell season like “Shucked” or “Spamalot.” It’s nice to start the fall season off with a little affection and warmth.
“The Notebook” runs through Oct. 5 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. Remaining performances are Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. $45.50-$186. bushnell.org.
