Video: In Rehearsals with the Cast of THE NOTEBOOK

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

The new musical The Notebook, which is based on the best-selling novel that inspired the iconic film, is coming to Broadway

It begins performances on February 10th at the show in Fell Theater, and we dropped by the rehearsal room to meet the company

I saw the movie when I was young with my best friend, and we watched it, and we wept and wept and wept

And I never got that story out of my head. So 20 years later, Kevin McCollum, the producer, one of the producers, points at me and says

The Notebook, you, the Notebook, and I, I said, excuse me, I went to the bathroom and I cried

because I was so overwhelmed. I am a romantic at heart. I have suffered through a lot of loss in my life

So the story is just, it feels so personal to. to me that I feel like I was perfectly chiseled out of flesh to create this piece

Like, it feels like I'm never going to make anything like this ever again

And maybe everybody thinks that, but I just feel so tied and braided into the story

And now, especially into the piece that we've made, it just, I'm having, like, pre-postpartum sadness

That's what my therapist calls it anyway. She's like, you're actively, you're like mourning something that hasn't ended yet

I'm like, I know, but this is the last week of rehearsal. I just, it was an instant yes for me, and it's been an instant yes over and over and over and over again the past seven years as we've worked on it

So by the time I was approached about it, Ingrid had written a few songs. And from the first note of the first song I listened to was an immediate yes

the music is so beautiful and comes straight from her heart And it that when I go see a musical I want to leave with the songs ingrained in my body And every song Ingrid has written is that kind of song

It's so truthful to the moment. It stays in your brain. It stays in your heart

So I was like, this is absolutely. And also, I feel like the story sings, a million percent the story sings

It felt like a no-brainer. And I've got a lot of Alzheimer's in my family

I've got the genetic kind running through my grandparents. grandfather's lineage. And it's just, it feels really important to, you know, shine a light and

bring this, bring this issue to the stage because so universal affects so many families

Audiences already fell in love with this out of town. What was it like for you at that first stop

watching how effective this material was to the audience member? It was very satisfying. I mean

we certainly felt it in the room. And it was incredible to have that community

feeling and to know while we really are on to something, people are feeling what we're feeling

They're teaching us about this piece in new ways. There are touchstones

There's generational touchstones, right? We see them in three different periods of time

And the multi-generational audiences that we have recognize our noas and alleys at different periods of time in their life

And at the end of the play, there is this communal sense of, I think, hope

and sometimes a little bit of sadness, but mostly hope and belief that this kind of love could exist

It was a great confirmation to be able to share with the audience

and have the audience respond as we hope they would and then go so much further

And then give us a whole lot of courage to go further ourselves

to push things, to challenge things, and to trust that an audience can

sit with some difficult things as well as some very uplifting things You all done special projects but what made this one so special for you I think the collaboration first of all being feeling so held by this group of people

and feeling trusted to do what sometimes I feel like I need to prove to myself that I can do

having the best partner and the best co-creators, the other people that are playing the same role as me

getting to learn from them, getting to add to them, I think the fulfillment is the best part about the show

Yeah, it's been such an honest and open and beautiful room in terms of creating something that is really emotionally weighty

I mean, it's not always the easiest time to do a show

where folks are crying and you're crying, and it can take a toll

And so I think just the support of the folks around us

whether it be behind the table with the creative team or people in the show that we're sharing it with

I think has really buoyed it for me. And to watch the other generations of yourselves in rehearsal

what that's like for you. It is a gift. I get a tear up right now

Getting, you know, know, this piece is not just a musical, right

For me, it's been a classroom. It's been the birth of many friendships and a masterclass

especially from my older selves that I get to just, you know

look to them and say, okay, where are you going? So you have to get from here to there and fill in the in-between

and then we'll have a conversation about how you got there so that I can piece it together

It's just like phenomenal. Yeah, I think the show sees the couples in their most vulnerable states of life

And so you really have to develop a lot of trust And so it a really really comfortable room to be in at this point especially with the amount of time that we been able to spend with each other from Chicago to now and so it really it really lovely to come into work feel so comfortable to make

these really bold choices and just sort of bear your soul in these moments that that really

call for it and yeah it just feels very appropriately vulnerable i think is the phrase that i

would use for the room yeah there's a simplicity of the story

that is universal, that people, we all have experienced at least one aspect of this

And if you're lucky, you get to experience all the aspects of it, no matter how hard they are

It's the richness, the fullness of living. You know, the payment. You have to pay rent

You don't get out red-free, you know. Yeah. It's been very, very exciting

And just the way it's staged, the memories that come out of Mary Ann's character

Ale's character, fleeting memories and the way it's just floatingly choreographed and written

it's just the uniqueness of theater. It would never be able to, you'd never be able to do it in film or television

So that's what makes it so special. Because you then can, just as in a book

usually it's hard for a person to read a book and then see the movie

because the imagination is hard to match any unique person's imagination. This is the same thing for theater

The way it's staged, it can't be done any other way. And it allows each person

to digest it and experience it in their own unique way. So that's what makes it very special and exciting