I have friends who’ve seen The Notebook–that romantic drama with Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams–and some have even read the original Nicholas Sparks book. It’s sweeping and very romantic, they say. Perfect for singing, right? But I found the flick gloopy. Not for me. But still. Perfect for singing.
Ask One Tree Hill‘s Bethany Joy Galeotti, and she’ll probably agree with you, and perhaps say she’s gone one step further: she’s developing such a project. Yup, The Notebook, the musical. She’s teamed up with producer Ron Aniello to start a workshop based on the novel, which she hopes is a step towards mounting a production in New York.
“It was something that I just wanted to do as my own project,” she said. “I just thought, ‘Man this will be so great. I just have to get this out. I feel music attached to this story and I have to write this music out and I have to make it into a play. And whether anything happens to it or not, I just have to get it out creatively for myself.'”
She wrote the libretto based on the novel, and got Sparks so impressed that he gave her the rights to the musical. The workshop, which will be held in Wilmington, NC, is the public’s first chance to see what her musical take on the book will look (and sound) like, but she says it isn’t the finished product yet.
“I think there’s a lot of talented people here,” Galeotti said. “I’m just excited to see who we get to come in and audition. And I just can’t wait to get the actors in the room and really work with them on these characters and see what happens.”
Actors willing to audition will not get paid, she says, but she hopes it’d draw performers with hopes of making it big in Broadway. She has the same hopes, too. Auditions kick off next month, with performances happening in October.
My friends in New York would probably wait for this, I can tell.
– Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: MSNBC, The Star-News
(Image courtesy of WENN)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
