"The Notebook" brings its romance to Broadway

come here don't touch me I hate you I hate you  go why don't you just go get go go it was a much loved film based on a best-selling novel get out  your hankies The Notebook opened this past week on Broadway David Pogue talks about the story's  enduring appeal with author Nicholas Sparks every Broadway show has a souvenir stand  for things like t-shirts and mugs but at a new musical that opened this past week they're  selling this I guess this is one of the hottest little uh merch on Broadway acc

ording to  articles that I've been reading it is a tissue box it's got the logo of the uh of the  play Nicholas Sparks has published 24 Romance novels all best sellers they've sold 130 million  copies and have been made into 11 movies but the very first one he published is his biggest  seller of all the notebook from 1996 I wrote you every day for a years you wrote me yes it  wasn't over still isn't over the 2004 movie version put young Ryan Gosling and Rachel  McAdams on the the map and became

a romance classic and now it's a Broadway musical of  course I was here on opening night and it's unbelievable you didn't cry did you yeah I  got a little you get a little weepy and he's not alone did you cry at all um from the jump  did you cry I did only I mean one elegant eye happy you took a curtain call with the cast  in opening night was that your first time on a Broadway stage oh yeah shoot I mean it's  my first time backstage I'm looking around like a tourist every version of The Noteboo

k  has employed a framing device as the end of his life approaches husband Noah reads from a  notebook to his wife Ally who has Alzheimer's disease it's the notebook containing  the story of their own decades long love [Music] that was a story inspired by my ex-wife's  grandparents and that when they were young they were separated for years she meets someone else  she comes back finds her first true love and they live long and happy and then um in their final  years age begins to take its toll h

ey I'm Noah I'm [Music] Ali is there any shame in hearing  this show described as a tearjerker I don't mind it if we are the play that makes you feel  things SL cry then there are worse boxes to be in playwright Bekah Brunstetter wrote the script  and songwriter Ingrid Michaelson wrote the music and lyrics I spoke to them on opening night oh  yes we normally don't wear matching Blazers and have this much makeup on it's the first time  either of them has worked on a Broadway show I thought I I ca

n do this I can figure out how to  make people who are going to come with their arms folded unfold their arms basically and then let's  all laugh you know and kind of combining those two things constantly because laughter and tears are  just so right there next to each other all the time in the Musical three pairs of actors play the  couple at three different [Applause] [Music] ages to [Music] run time time from the very beginning  we knew we wanted three Allies and three Noahs you can have an o

lder version of a character  watching their younger self especially since we are dealing with memory so much uh and losing  memory and fragmented memory that having these other versions of themselves on stage were really  helpful no Nicholas Sparks romance novel has ever included a black main character but in the  musical Noah and Ali seem to change races fluidly at different ages I love you Ally I asked  co-directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams about that race is not the story you're seei

ng  the spirit of who they are you're seeing not only their Essence but their experience and for someone  like me who grew up looking at theater through a window and never through a mirror being able to  see myself on stage is powerful it grew out of how do we do this in the best possible way unique  and I think very wonderful casting idea many on the creative team relate deeply to the dementia  depicted in the show my mom has Alzheimer's and so when I read the story you know it it really  spoke

to me I also have a grandfather who had Alzheimer's so I had witnessed it firsthand  and it seems like pretty much everyone has a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle or a  sibling you know so it's with some form of Dementia or yeah does it affect the writing yeah  I mean all of that is is in there from us yeah [Music] yeah reviews of the musical have ranged from  rave to reserved but Nicholas Sparks suspects that a story this Universal will be critic proof  it is a love story it is story of youn

g love it is a story of reunited love it's a story  of everlasting love it is also a story of [Applause] [Music] memory and speaking  of Eternal themes remember that box of tissues turns out the musicals producers  weren't the first to recognize the marketing potential of Kleenex 30 years ago when  the notebook novel first came out this of course is what we sent to critics and  bookstore owners and uh look at this this was it we gave them a hanky for their tears  oh come on the notebook and genu

ine emotion yeah yep have always gone you s around a  handkerchief with the books the critics oh my gosh it's 30 years now it's disposable  paper but it's the same idea it's the same idea