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[title]First a bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks, then a blockbuster movie starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams—and now, a musical.
More 25 years after its original publication, beloved romantic drama The Notebook gets the stage treatment in a new musical adaptation that’s in the midst of a hotly-anticipated world premiere at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Featuring a score and lyrics by indie songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a book by TV writer Bekah Brunsetter, the show depicts the multi-decade love saga of Noah and Allie as they struggle to reconcile their different upbringings—she’s rich, he’s poor—amid the rigid social structures of the 1940s-era American South.
The film has built up something of a cult following over the years, nabbing an MTV Movie & TV prize for Best Kiss and countless spots among best-of lists for chick flicks and love stories spanning the mid-aughts and beyond. Curious about how you adapt one of the most popular romances of the past several decades for a theater audience? We spoke with directors Schele Williams and Michael Greif about what to expect from the new production, including how it pays homage to some of the movie’s most iconic scenes.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
The Notebook was first a book, and then a movie. What new possibilities does theater offer for telling this story?
Michael Greif: Theater is an immersive experience because we all get to be in the same room and experience the story together. We get to be doing a musical version of The Notebook for the first time, and the music certainly heightens many of the really wonderful aspects of this romantic and very sad story. And I think the theater also gives us the opportunity to do a little elegant overlapping of time periods, in ways in which the reality of film doesn’t quite allow.
The film version has some iconic scenes, like the famous kiss in the rain. Can you talk at all about portraying those moments on stage?
Schele Williams: We’ve got a kiss in the rain. We had a feeling everyone would be expecting that, so we will certainly have a kiss in the rain.
On that note—how do you deal with expectations from audience members who are already huge fans of the source material?
MG: We’ve really enjoyed the fact that many of our audience members are already going to know parts of the story, and we got to enhance those parts of the story. We’ve also been very aware of those people who are meeting this story for the first time. We think we are very loyal to the events of the novel and the movie, which I think devotees know are slightly different. So I think in many ways that gives us permission to be another slightly different version.
What specific qualities make this adaptation feel fresh?
MG: Ingrid Michaelson has written a varied and lush score. She writes incredibly specific lyrics, and Schele and I are finding it particularly rewarding and gratifying to be directing her songs because they’re so character-specific and there’s so much dramatic action and truth and authenticity. We’re going back to using our imaginations in the way you do when you encounter a page of a novel.
The production suffered several COVID-related delays, which pushed the premiere from March to September of this year. Can you talk a little bit about how that affected your rehearsal process?
SW: I’m really happy to say despite all the delays, we never stopped working on the piece. We took advantage of the time that was afforded to us and continued to invest in the story and deepen it in every way we could think of, and I think we’re enormously proud of where we are, and the opportunity to present it at this time. We feel like we’re doing our best work.
What’s next for The Notebook?
MG: To be determined. We’re really focusing on our run here in Chicago. We’re loving the Chicago audience, we’re loving to get to work here on Navy Pier in Chicago Shakespeare Theater—it’s a nourishing and inspirational place to be.
SW: It’s a particularly poignant time to be telling this story. People are finally gathering again, and we get to feel together. We get to laugh together, we get to cry together. We get to love together and remember people together. You know, we’ve gone through quite an interesting couple of years, and it’s really beautiful for this art to make our souls sing, and remember and love each other again. It’s been such a joy to debut this beautiful, beautiful thing.
The Notebook runs through October 30 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Tickets are $48-$125 and available via the theater's website.