How ‘The Notebook’ Broadway Musical Highlights the Universality of the Story’s Enduring Romance

variety.com:

Gordon Cox Theater Editor Even if you don’t know “The Notebook,” you know there’s a romantic couple at the heart of the story.

But in the new Broadway musical adaptation of “The Notebook,” there’s not just one couple — there’s three: Three actors playing each of the two characters at different times of their lives. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: “We certainly didn’t invent the concept of splitting one character between three actors, but it felt very right for this,” said the show’s book writer, Bekah Brunstetter, appearing with songwriter Ingrid Michaelson on the new episode of Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. “It allowed us to really make our show different from the movie and book — and just having those three woman and three men in those different time periods allowed me to make it a play, really.” There’s no attempt to make sure the two sets of three actors look alike, and each character is played by actors of more than one race.

Bekah and Brunstetter said the creative team, including directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams, made that choice to underscore the universality of the tale. “We have this opportunity to take this beloved story and expand it in a way that people can hopefully see themselves, or a fraction of themselves, or pieces of themselves onstage,” said Michaelson. “Why wouldn’t we do that?

What a beautiful way to show the universality of love and loss and everything in between. It takes this beautiful story and it just busts it open into the heavens.