Exquisitely staged and performed, the best-selling novel-turned-movie blockbuster-turned Broadway crowd-pleaser The Notebook The Musical, now visiting the Pantages, is the most unabashedly romantic musical since The Bridges Of Madison County, not coincidentally another Nicholas Sparks novel-turned-Hollywood blockbuster, and I loved every gloriously sung and heartstrings-tugging moment of it.

Like the 2004 film that starred Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as star-crossed sweethearts Noah and Allie, The Notebook The Musical tells their story in a series of flashbacks evoked by the notebook that a now elderly Noah reads to Allie in the hopes of sparking some memory of the love that has united them for half a century, a love that even her Alzheimer’s cannot erase.

If the mere thought of so romantic a love story already has tears brimming in your eyes, then like this reviewer The Notebook will have you in its spell from the first of singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson’s gorgeous songs all the way up to a full-cast “Coda” that makes a pocket-sized pack of Kleenex a must for hopeless romantics like me.

Bekah Brunstetter’s niftily conceived book divides the roles of Noah and Allie into three iterations, Younger (Kyle Mangold and Chloë Cheers), Middle (understudy Nick Brogan and Alysha Deslorieux), and Older (Beau Gravitte and Sharon Catherine Brown), and one of the prolific playwright’s most inspired touches is to have all three couples sharing the stage throughout much of the show as Noah and Allie’s distant past and their slightly more recent past find themselves inextricably linked with the 70something couple they have become.

Given their vastly different upbringings and social statuses, it’s perhaps no wonder that working class Noah and wealthy Allie find their budding romance discouraged (and that’s putting it mildly) by her class-conscious parents (Jerome Harmann-Hardeman and Anne Tolpegin), and when Noah finds himself accused of “kidnapping” Allie, he has no other choice but to enlist in the Army, destination war-torn Viet Nam.

And though this is clearly not the end of their relationship, the road to happily ever after proves a rocky one indeed.

Cynics like New York Times drama critic Jesse Green, whose review was titled “A Musical Tear-Jerker or Just All Wet” may tsk-tsk The Notebook, but I for one have rarely been more moved by a musical, or more impressed by a directorial duo’s ability to enthrall an audience with visually dazzling staging than co-directors Michael Grief and Schele Williams (along with choreographer Katie Spellman) have delivered here.

Not only that, but since The Notebook is a love story three times over, composer-lyricist Michaelson, who’s got more than a few gold and platinum singles to her name, proves the perfect choice to write love song after love song that not only reveal these characters feelings at any given moment but stand alone as potential pop hits.

Mangold and Cheers are absolutely captivating as young people discovering the joys and heartbreaks of first (and in this case forever) love, while Corbin and Deslorieux dig deep into the emotions of the older and wiser couple reuniting after too many years spent too far apart, with Deslorieux scoring bonus vocal points for the Act Two showstopper “My Days.”

Gravitte and Brown bring decades of life experience (and stage credits) to the much older Noah and Allie, and watching the latter’s struggles with Alzheimer’s is both heartbreaking and heartachingly real.

Connor Richardson is earnestly charming as physical therapist Johnny while Nick Brogan (swinging ably into the role of Lon), Harmann-Hardeman (as both Allie’s father and her son), Caleb Mathura (Fin, Grandson), Rayna Hickman (Nurse Joanna), Makena Jackson (Sarah, Granddaughter), Tolpegin (who doubles as Nurse Lori), and Grace Ohwensadeyo Rundberg (Georgie) deliver the featured-player goods both in their main role(s) and as “Others.”

The design contributions of  Lucy MacKinnon (video design), Mia Neal (hair and wigs), Ben Stanton (lighting), Paloma Young (costumes) , and David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis (set) enhance the production’s considerable visual appeal every step of the way in a production design completed by Nevin Steinberg’s crystal-clear sound design.

Last but not least, music director Tina Faye and the orchestra she conducts give The Notebook’s songs and underscoring the lushest of musical accompaniments, with music supervision and arrangements by Carmel Dean.

Like Brogan, swings Aaron Ramey, Shari Washington Rhone, dance captain Samantha Rios, Emily Somé, and Joe Verga are poised to step into leading and featured roles at a moment’s notice, and associate director Asmert Ghebremichael and associate choreographer Emily Madigan deserve major snaps for their contributions to The Notebook’s national tour.

Justin Myhre is production stage manager. Michael Camp is company manager.

There have been Broadway musical love stories before, but none in the past decade have been as profoundly moving as The Notebook.

Those of a less romantic bent may opt to stay home and stream something “provocative” and “boundary-pushing” on one of the umpteen streaming services they have at their disposal, but those longing to be profoundly moved by a story of love at its most joyous, heartbreaking, and enduring will find that, and then some, in The Notebook.

Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles.
www.broadwayla.org

–Steven Stanley
January 7, 2026
Photos: Roger Mastroianni

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Bekah Brunstetter, Ingrid Michaelson, Los Angeles Theater Review, Nicholas Sparks, Pantages Theatre