Nilufer Arsala of The Current’s Morning Show talked with singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson about writing the music for the Grammy-nominated stage adaptation of The Notebook.

Use the audio player above to listen to the interview, and find a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Nilufer Arsala: You're listening to The Current's Morning Show, I'm Nilufer Arsala. You might know Ingrid Michaelson from songs like "The Way I Am" and "Girls Chase Boys," but she's got another feather in her cap. She wrote the music and lyrics for the stage production of The Notebook, which is now open at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, and she joins me now to talk about the Tony- and Grammy-nominated musical, and how you adapt what was first a book and then a film for the stage. Ingrid, welcome to The Current's Morning Show.

Ingrid Michaelson: Hi. Good morning.

Nilufer Arsala: So without giving anything away, I know The Notebook was a huge blockbuster hit, but can you give us a quick overview of the story of The Notebook?

Ingrid Michaelson: Well, it is about a couple who have been together for many, many years, and the woman has dementia, and the husband is trying to bring her back by reading their story to them. And that's kind of the plot twist in the movie. But we don't shy away from that, because 95% of the people coming in, they already know. So, we just kind of went with it, and the story and embraced it. And you know, pretty soon, pretty early on.

Nilufer Arsala: Yeah, and the way it's done — because I got to see the production at the Ordway — the way it's done when they're looking back at their memories and there's different versions of their past selves. It's just wonderfully done. It just really was, it was beautiful. 

Ingrid Michaelson: Thank you. Yeah, Bekah [Brunstetter], the book writer and I, very early on in the movie, they have two different sets of actors. And we thought, what if we splice that up even more? Because we do see them in these three different time periods. We see them when they fall in love, when they're young. We see them when they reunite and when they're in their early 30s, late 20s, and then we see them when they're older. So we kind of only see them in these three brief window panes, so to speak. And so we thought, well, that would be really theatrical to take two sets of actors and make it into three sets of actors. Musically, it leads for really interesting harmonies and theatrically and staging wise, like you said, you can have one of the older characters onstage looking back at their two of their younger selves, possibly singing with their younger selves. It's really a beautiful theatrical way to play with memory.

Nilufer Arsala: How did you get involved in making the music for this stage adaptation?

Ingrid Michaelson: One of the producers and I had a meeting, and he knew that I wanted to work on a musical, and he thought this might be a good fit for me. He mentioned The Notebook, and I was so excited that I wrote probably six or seven songs without even getting hired.

Nilufer Arsala: Wow!

Ingrid Michaelson: I kept writing songs and sending them to him, and then eventually they hired me. They were like, “This woman isn't gonna stop, so we should just give her the job.” No, they loved the music, obviously, but I love the story so much, and I felt I'm such a romantic at heart, and it felt like I was destined to write this musical, so I wasn't gonna let the chance go by. And so I just kept writing songs.

Nilufer Arsala: You're listening to The Current's Morning Show. I'm Nilufer Arsala, talking with Ingrid Michaelson, who wrote the music and lyrics for the stage production of The Notebook, which is now open at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul. So you were a fan of the movie, and I read that you had read the book, but you wanted to take a different approach when it came to the stage adaptation. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Ingrid Michaelson: I think the way we thought about things was, if you want to go see the movie, then see the movie. But a stage adaptation should be that. It should be an adaptation. It should be another iteration of this beloved story. There's a lot you can do in movies that you can't do onstage, but there's also a lot you can do onstage. It's a little bit more magical. You're seeing people sing in front of you, so you're already suspending your disbelief in that way, you know? And so I think there's a really a magical element that theater affords you, and we really want to lean into that.

Nilufer Arsala: Ingrid, you've been a musician for a while. A lot of your songs have played here on The Current, but this was your first jump into the world of musical theater and composing for a big production like this. How different was it for you to compose songs for an already written story, versus writing a song for you or that you're creating?

Ingrid Michaelson: Well, I didn't really set out to write a big, tap-dancey, show-tuney musical. I wanted to make something that was a little more reverent, more calming in nature, and that really is how I write anyway. So instead of writing stories about myself, I would have to write a song that gets this character from point A to point B. So I'm writing about, for instance, she's panicking in the bathroom because she's just seen this picture of her long-lost love, and he's alive, and he's 45 minutes away, and he's been there this whole time, and [she’s thinking,] “Oh my gosh, I'm getting married, and what am I going to do?” And so it's this panicky moment, and it's very specific, but also I've had moments where I have had that level of panic over somebody I loved or somebody I lost, or somebody I missed. And so sure, you're writing for a character, but we all have experienced the same feelings, and so you just sort of reach into those pockets and rattle around until you feel like you're writing something authentic from you and also from the character. That's kind of how I approached this.

Nilufer Arsala: You're listening to The Current's Morning Show. I'm Nilufer Arsala talking with Ingrid Michaelson, who wrote the music and lyrics for the stage production of The Notebook, which is now open at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul. So, you're right, there's some really heavy moments, right? There's the panic, there's Allie's struggle with dementia. Even though the story can get intense, there's a lot of humor in the play, and there's parts that are really, really funny. Did you intentionally try to mix in that humor and make things a little funny? 

Ingrid Michaelson: Yeah. So, Bekah Brunstetter, the book writer and I, are very close friends, and we looked at this as sort of passing the baton back and forth from song to scene to song to scene. We didn't want there to be these huge breaks in between. We wanted them to sort of walk side by side and hand in hand. And a lot of times, I was tasked with writing something that was quite heavy, and then to get the audience out of that heavy moment, the song ends, and then [Brunstetter] has this perfect one-liner from one of the funnier characters in the play that just lifts you out of that moment. But that's the beauty about this production of The Notebook: We stretch an audience between laughter and sadness, essentially. We really pull people back and forth between these two opposing and very human emotions. And by the end of the piece, you've been stretched so much that you're just this sort of vulnerable little person just sitting there in your seat with 2,000 other vulnerable little people sitting there in their seats. And it becomes this church-like experience where everyone is in it together. There is a sense of community, I think, truly by the end of it, because everyone's been laughing and crying together, it's like you're not just strangers anymore, after you've had that experience.

Bekah and I always say, “Call your mom, call your dad, call your friends. This is our life we have.” You're watching this beautiful story unfold in front of you, what does your beautiful story have to tell? And how do you want to live that life? And those are the questions we want people asking themselves as they walk out. And I think our piece really does that, because it's not just sad, because it's not just funny, because it's all the things it makes you feel, all the things. If you're vulnerable and open to it.

Nilufer Arsala: You're listening to The Current's Morning Show. I'm Nilufer Arsala, talking with Ingrid Michaelson, who wrote the music and lyrics for the stage production of The Notebook, which is now open at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul. So Ingrid, the soundtrack for The Notebook, it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album in 2024. What was your reaction when you heard that news? I mean, it's the first time you've done something like this, and now it was nominated for a Grammy.

Ingrid Michaelson: I know, and it was very fun. We all got dressed up. Listen, awards are tricky, because a wise woman once told me, “You don't win art.” We all get caught up in it, and we all want the accolades, and we want to feel like our peers think that we're good and all this stuff. And so on that level, it was lovely to be recognized by a group of people that you want to impress and that you want to be a part of. So it was great and fun, but I also just — on a purely heart level — I know the record we made, and I know the choices that we made in those rooms, and the years it took to figure out how to make these songs perfect and the orchestrations, and I couldn't be prouder of anything that I've done in my life. If we hadn't gotten a Grammy nomination, I still would have felt the same way. I think one of the more exciting things about making a cast album is that that's the blueprint. And it's going to be listened to for generations, because people are going to be doing this show across the country and across the world for who knows how long, and they're always going to go back to that record to listen to the songs, to make sure they're hitting those notes right, and doing their research. And so that was really exciting for me and the cast. It's like, this is going to go beyond us. So it's pretty powerful.

Nilufer Arsala: Absolutely. Well, The Notebook is now open at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, and it runs through November 30. It's based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, and has music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson. Ingrid, thank you so much for joining me on The Morning Show today.

Ingrid Michaelson: Thanks for having me.

Nilufer Arsala: And from the original Broadway cast recording of The Notebook, here's a little bit of the song "My Days" on The Current's Morning Show.

Credits

Guests – Ingrid Michaelson
Host – Nilufer Arsala
Producer – Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer – Natalia Toledo

External Links

The Notebook – Ordway Music Theater official site

Ingrid Michaelson – official site