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    ‘The Notebook’ Will End Its Broadway Run in December. A Tour Is Next.

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    The show, nominated for three Tony Awards, opened March 14 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. It will go on a national tour starting next September.“The Notebook,” a musical adapted from the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, will end its Broadway run on Dec. 15 after struggling to find sufficient ticket buyers during a competitive spring and summer.But this is not the end of the road for the musical. The producers, who announced the closing on Friday, said they plan a national tour of the show starting next September at Playhouse Square in Cleveland; some musicals, particularly those with well-known titles, fare better on tour than in New York.The musical, like the 1996 book and a 2004 film adaptation, is the story of a lifelong romance, told from the point of view of an older couple, one of whom has Alzheimer’s disease. Featuring songs by Ingrid Michaelson and a book by Bekah Brunstetter, “The Notebook” is directed by Michael Greif and Schele Williams.The show began previews Feb. 10 and opened March 14 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. A pre-Broadway production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater had been well-received, but in New York, reviews were mixed; The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, called it “meretricious” (look it up: It’s not a compliment).Onstage, three pairs of actors play the lead characters at different stages of their lives; the musical is set in a coastal mid-Atlantic town in the 1960s, the 1970s and the present day. “The Notebook” was nominated for three Tony Awards but won none.It is the fourth musical to announce earlier-than-hoped-for closing dates since May, following “Lempicka,” “The Heart of Rock and Roll” and “The Who’s Tommy.” Broadway is always a difficult industry, and most shows fail financially, but the odds of success are particularly long now because production costs have risen, audience size has fallen, and there is a high volume of shows competing for attention. At the time of its closing, “The Notebook” will have played 35 previews and 317 regular performances.“The Notebook,” with Kevin McCollum and Kurt Deutsch as lead producers, was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money has not been recouped. More

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      ‘The Wiz’ Review: A Black Classic Returns to Broadway

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      Almost 50 years after it debuted, this classic Black take on “The Wizard of Oz” tries to update its original formula.Let me start with a confession: I’ve never liked “The Wizard of Oz.” But give me a retelling with, say, a Black Dorothy and Black Oz, and I’m immediately clicking my heels.When “The Wiz” debuted on Broadway in 1975, it was a colorful exclamation of Blackness on the stage. That’s to say a Black score, by Charlie Smalls, including gospel and R&B; a Black cast; and Black audiences at the forefront.Then three years later the beloved Motown film adaptation, starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Richard Pryor, pulled a Black Dorothy from her home, not in Kansas but in Harlem, and the New York City boroughs were cleverly transmogrified into the stylish, futuristic Oz.Now “The Wiz” returns to Broadway in a revival directed by Schele Williams and an updated book by Amber Ruffin, with the aim of creating a take “through the Blackest of Black lenses.” This new production, which opened at the Marquis Theater on Tuesday, showcases creative visuals and some standout performances, but stops short of bringing modern Blackness to Broadway.Here, Dorothy (Nichelle Lewis, in her Broadway debut) is a city girl who’s moved to Kansas to live with her Aunt Em (Melody A. Betts, who later doubles as the deliciously brass-throated witch Evillene). But Dorothy doesn’t feel at home and is being bullied by her classmates. A sudden meteorological anomaly flies Dorothy to Oz, where she seeks the counsel of the great and powerful Wiz (Wayne Brady) on how to get back home. Along the way she’s joined by a scarecrow (Avery Wilson) in need of a brain, a tinman (Phillip Johnson Richardson) wanting a heart and a lion (Kyle Ramar Freeman) desperate for some courage. (Sorry dog-lovers, there’s no Toto.)There’s plenty of gold to be found along this yellow brick road. Deborah Cox’s Glinda, the good witch, in a shimmering gold gown, looks like a jewel and sounds like one, too, with her crystalline voice switching from jazzy scatting to a sparkling falsetto in “He’s the Wiz” and later offering a triumphant performance of “Believe in Yourself.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      ‘The Notebook’ Review: A Musical Tear-Jerker or Just All Wet?

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      The 2004 weepie comes to Broadway with songs by Ingrid Michaelson and a $5 box of tissues.Romantic musicals are as personal as romance itself. What makes you sigh and weep may leave the person next to you bored and stony.At “The Notebook,” I was the person next to you.You were sniffling even before anything much happened onstage. As the lights came up, an old man dozed while a teenage boy and girl frisked nearby in an unconvincing body of water. A wispy song called “Time” wafted over the footlights: “Time time time time/It was never mine mine mine.”But having seen (I’m guessing more than once) the 2004 movie on which “The Notebook” is based, and possibly having read the 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks, you perfectly well knew what was coming. That was the point of mounting the show, which opened on Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, in the first place.It therefore cannot be a spoiler — and anyway this block of cheese is impervious — to reveal that over the course of the 54 years covered by the musical, the frisky boy, Noah, turns into the dozing man. And that Allie, the frisky girl, having overcome various impediments to their love, winds up his wife. Nor does it give anything away to add that Allie, now 70 and in a nursing home with dementia, will not remember Noah until he recites their story from a notebook she prepared long ago for that purpose.So there’s a reason the producers are selling teeny $5 “Notebook”-themed boxes of tissues in the lobby. Love is powerful. Dementia is sad. The result can be heartbreaking.Or maybe, seen with a cold eye, meretricious.The movie, a super-slick Hollywood affair, did everything it could to keep the eye warm. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, as the young couple, could not have been glowier. The soundtrack relied on precision-crafted standards like “I’ll Be Seeing You” to yank at your tear ducts. The production design, like a montage of greeting cards come to life, celebrated valentine passion, anniversary tenderness and golden sympathy, releasing flocks of trained geese into a technicolor sunset to symbolize lifelong pair bonding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More