By Joe Contreras, Latin Life Denver, (see video trailer below)

Where do we go, when we go? When we disappear? Where do we go? It’s not a question about the afterlife but rather about Alzheimer’s. That profound lyric from the song “Coda” in the play ‘The Notebook’ currently at the DCPA has stuck with me since experiencing the play opening night. What happens to someone when they leave their lifelong reality, when they now can’t remember the love of their life or close family members, when they are in world all their own? Where do they go when they’re here, but they’re not?

I don’t know, do you? The Notebook is a fascinating and sobering look at love lost and found again only to be lost again through no fault of anyone but to an incurable disease. Alzheimer’s, that progressive brain disorder, the most common cause of dementia, that slowly destroys memory, thinking, and reasoning skills, eventually making it difficult to perform simple daily tasks like eating or walking.

The notebook tells the love story of Allie and Noah in three different phases of their lives. As young friends who fall in love during a summertime romance only to be separated by Allies’s disapproving parents. Noah (Kyle Mangold) works at his father’s lumber mill with little aspirations to do much else with his life. Allie (Chole Cheers) is an artist and college bound. She is super smart with a bright future ahead of her. After a night of passion together, Noah is accused of kidnapping and is forced to join the army. Although they are seperated their love is undeniable. Noah promises to write to Allie everyday.

Then, there is middle Allie (Alysha Deslorieux) and Noah (Ken Wulf Clark). It’s been 10 years since they have seen or heard from one another. They have both moved on. Noah never wrote. Allie assumed he must have died in combat. Now, Allie is to be married to a successful lawyer in a weeks time. Noah is selling a home he built for Allie believing they would both spend the rest of their lives there. But it was not to be.

Soon, Allie spots an article in the local newspaper about Noah selling the house. Realizing he is still alive, Allie is compelled to see him one last time before she gets married, but moreover, she wants know what happened to their love. Why didn’t he write?

In the waning years of their lives the elder Noah (Beau Gravitte) and Allie (Sharon Catherine Brown) sit in a nursing home. The once vibrant and intelligent Allie has Alzheimer’s. Noah has found a way to also be in the same nursing home so he could be close to Allie. He reads to her daily from a notebook, a story of two people deeply in love and the challenges that life thrown at them. It’s their story, but who wrote it and why?

The Notebook is deeply moving production. Like me, it may make you cry. It’s a musical, but it doesn’t feel like it. The story seems to overpower the music. Don’t get me wrong, the music, lyrics, the singing are powerful and wonderful but my mind was fixed on the story.

Several people in the theatre said they have seen the movie numerous times. 10 times said Susan Benavidez, stating that The Notebook for her was the best musical she has seen. “It was true to the movie, although I realize many details of the film could not be included in the stage production.

In the end, The Notebook is really about enjoying life and love, having compassion for one another, while you are here, while you are present. “That’s the message we hope the audience get’s out of this production” said one of the cast members.

The Notebook, based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and directed by Michael Greif & Schele Williams plays the Buell Theatre and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts through December 28, 2025

Show runs 2 hours 20 minutes, including 15 minute intermission

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