You'd better check on that one friend who's obsessed with romance novels, because The Notebook is headed to Broadway in 2024. The musical adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' classic 1996 novel will open March 14, 2024, at New York's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. While the cast has yet to be announced, the stage play features a stacked roster of production talent, including music and lyrics by "The Way I Am" singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a book by three-time Emmy nominee Bekah Brunstetter (Maid, This Is Us).
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The Notebook musical centers on the decades-spanning love affair between wealthy socialite Allie Hamilton and her lower-class soulmate Noah Calhoun, memorably portrayed by Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in the 2004 film adaptation. The musical was originally announced in 2019, and had its world premiere run at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2022.
Michaelson shared the news of The Notebook: The Musical's Broadway debut in an Instagram post on August 3. "I can't believe I'm saying this. The @notebookmusical is going to Broadway!" she wrote, adding: "Just typing that makes my heart race. Musical theater has always been in my bones."
The singer-songwriter made her Broadway debut as Sonya in 2017's Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812. When she first learned that The Notebook was being adapted for the stage, Michaelson jumped at the chance to score the musical:
"It's so different when you're writing for a character, when you're writing for these other people, than when you're writing about yourself or your own emotions," Michaelson said of writing songs for the production on the Today show in 2019. "So it's been really interesting and really different for me to write from these perspectives. And just the idea of this undying love and of loss and memory — I can't stop writing them. I'm going to have too many."
Michaelson previously posted a video of herself performing "If This Is Love," an original song she wrote for The Notebook: The Musical. Watch her performance in the below video:
The musical is co-directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen) and Schele Williams (who's helming the musical adaptation of Disney's Oscar-nominated 2016 film Hidden Figures). Both previously served as co-directors for the Chicago production of The Notebook: The Musical.
Preview performances will begin February 6, 2024, at New York's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, with opening night set for March 14. Presale tickets are available September 19-22, and tickets will open to the public on September 26.
