Buy Stock In Kleenex — ‘The Notebook’ Is Going To Be A Broadway Musical

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams at the premiere of ‘The Notebook’ in 2004 Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer January 4, 2019

I love you, “The Notebook, the Musical.” I am who I am because of “The Notebook, The Musical.” “The Notebook, The Musical” is every reason, every hope, and every dream I’ve ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours, “The Notebook, The Musical.”

^You when the mega-hit Nicholas Sparks romantic novel-turned-movie “The Notebook” becomes a Broadway musical.

It was announced on Thursday that “The Notebook,” the cultural phenomenon of beautiful white people making out in a puddle of their own tears, will head to Broadway. Folk-pop star Ingrid Michaelson and “This Is Us” writer Bekah Brunstetter will lead the adaptation, with Sparks on board as a producer alongside Kevin McCollum and Kurt Deutsch.

The story of “The Notebook,” which topped best seller charts in 1996, follows an elderly man as he reads from a notebook to a dementia-stricken woman, reciting a story of a young poor man and Southern teen heiress who engaged in a smoldering (but physically damp) doomed relationship many years before. Sex and death ensue. The book was adapted into a 2004 movie starring then-unknown Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, with a screenplay by James Leven. The movie is, perhaps, responsible for 90 percent of Americans’ misconceptions about love and relationships.

Other than Brunstetter and presumably Leven, “The Notebook” and “The Notebook, The Musical” are pretty goyish. We’re here to honor the fact that Ingrid Michaelson spent her formative musical years at the JCC of Long Island. Oh, lovely Ingrid! As Noah and Allie would say, if we’re a bird, then you’re a bird.

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a student in the MFA Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, a former staff writer at Glamour, and a former writer and editor at the Forward.

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