Composer Ingrid Michaelson and playwright Bekah Brunstetter share a similar aesthetic in their writing that makes them ideal collaborators. Michaelson is an indie singer-songwriter whose tunes include “Be OK,” “The Way I Am,” and “You and I”; Brunstetter’s plays include The Cake and Be a Good Little Widow, and she’s been a writer and producer on NBC’s This Is Us. Each of their works tend to straddle emotions, with one foot planted firmly in heartache and the other standing on happiness.
Those inclinations are also a match for the subject of their collaboration: the new musical adaptation of The Notebook, which begins Broadway previews February 10 at the Schoenfeld Theatre. In fact, there’s even a song called “Sadness and Joy.”
“We hold these two diametrically opposed feelings in our bodies at all times, and it’s just a matter of which one is edging out the other,” says Michaelson. “But they’re always there. I really try to choose to lean into joy, but sadness is always there, and that’s OK. When The Notebook came around, I was like, ‘Well, I’m perfect for this.”
Brunstetter agrees, saying she’s “exactly the same.”
Based on the 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook centers on the relationship between Allie and Noah, following them from the first giddy days of their young romance, through time apart spent yearning and wondering, and as an older married couple with one of them affected by dementia.
Producers Kevin McCollum and Kurt Deutsch had been dreaming up an adaptation of the novel/film for years, and when they talked to Michaelson about composing the score, she set to work immediately...READ MORE