In short, I loved the Notebook the Musical and it’s here in Seattle through March 8, 2026
If you want a bit of a longer review, here we go:
I posted a bit about my background with this movie and our life in this city on my Instagram and I have been excited about this musical coming to Seattle ever since I saw it published in the 2025/2026 Broadway in Seattle musical catalog. My expectations were so high I felt very apprehensive going into the show knowing that I might be seriously disappointed because lately, it feels so hard to believe in hopeful things. But I was not disappointed one bit.
From the first soulful notes sang by older Noah (Beau Gravitee) rising from a chair center stage, I had shivers. Somehow this talented cast, this musical, the exquisite lighting, the unabashed feelings emoting from the stage-this was going to be a beautiful hopeful love story and all we had to do is let our hearts open for the ride.
It is not the same as the Notebook Movie that I first watched at the opening night of the Seattle International Film Festival in 2004 and I’m going to have to rewatch the movie to see where things differ. This musical is not trying to recreate Rachel McAdams or Ryan Gosling on stage and in our Seattle cast the character of Allie comes from a biracial family (and being from a biracial family myself, this might have biased my lens positively towards this production too). I don’t remember hearing the “if you’re a bird I’m a bird” line in the musical so one day I’ll have to go back and look for it. Ultimately the underlying story is the same.
And while the events also don’t unfold the same as they do in a movie, I feel like they’re more artistically included with multiple versions of the characters at different ages on the stage at the very same time. I feel like this musical tells the story of loving someone with Alzheimer’s incredibly heartbreakingly accurately and also gives a glimpse at what it might even feel like to be struggling with the disease. (Sharon Catherine Brown plays this part to perfection). It feels a lot more like being pulled into an art piece that is trying to give you a sense of a complex immense feeling instead of explicitly explaining what the feeling is. And as someone who loves the theatrics of musicals like confetti cannons and streamers (and the ice skating scene in Kimberly Akimbo) I can’t believe they brought a water scene on stage too.
There was only one time I thought I might be wrong about this musical with “kiss me” a song that has the word mouth repeated in it three times in the chorus that subtly reminded me of a Shania Twain song that has the word “mouth” drawn out in it (and I don’t know why it bothers me- I just choose to skip it every time it shows up in my music feed). But sometimes I feel like the universe has little Easter eggs like this to keep us on our toes. I got through the song and it did not affect my feelings for the show.
Instead, I let myself get carried along with the story and the music and tried not to ugly cry too loudly. (And why don’t we let ourselves cry with gusto in public? What if the things we experience ring so closely to the feelings we just don’t know how to express any other way?)
So if you are looking for the Notebook the movie this isn’t it. That movie is frozen in time 22 years ago and those actors have grown older and some have even passed on and it’s impossible to replicate that very same production from that very same time on stage now, let alone in musical form. But if you have ever been loved or if you love someone, and believe in hope and still hold onto these things dearly despite everything, then this might be a play your heart can find comforting and even uplifting. And maybe you, like me, might feel less alone in the world in your search for joy and love and more hopeful in a room full of those who see some piece of themselves up on that stage too.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)