First a novel, then a movie, & now a live musical, the third time's the charm for "The Notebook."

The latest rendition of "The Notebook," the national musical tour, made its second stop at the Bushnell in Hartford this week. And thanks to a re-visioned book, superb cast and unique staging, this “Notebook” offers an even more poignant love story than both Sparks’ 1996 nostalgic bestseller and Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 screen melodrama.

The musical, like the novel and movie, is the story of a lifelong romance, told from the point of view of an older couple, one of whom has Alzheimer’s disease. It features music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and, while not tunes the audience walks away whistling, the songs assist the audience in following along the more complicated characterization and staging aspects of the musical brought about by Bekah Brunstetter's book. For while Sparks originally penned a straightforward romance between two life partners spanning decades, Bekah Brunstetter's vision is larger.

"Theater is for the exploration of big universal things that we need to be physically present to wrestle with," she said in a March 2024 interview on broadwaydirect.com. She further explained, "In the musical, we explore big universal things, not just a love story." To accomplish this Brunstetter reshaped Sparks' linear love story "to instead present it as a memory play that examines the decisions that inform one's holistic life," according to the article.

Brunstetter is known for her creative depiction of how a person's present life holistically coexists and is informed by past memory and future outcomes in her writing for the groundbreaking TV narrative "This is Us," from 2016 to 2022. She weaves the same non-linear threads into the plot-fabric of "The Notebook" by having expanded the cast of two central characters -Noah and Allie in the original "Notebook"- to six: Older Noah, Middle Noah, and Younger Noah, along with Older Allie, Middle Allie, and Younger Allie. In this way the past and present characterizations can appear simultaneously onstage figuring out their lives the way our own minds shift back and forth from then to now and then again, over and over, as we forge our own life paths.

Brunstetter’s goal of greater universality is achieved by virtue of the creative casting, costuming (the musical takes place in the 1970s instead of the novel's 1940s), and the acting versatility of the three Allies of the Bushnell production: Chloe Cheers, Alysha Deslorieux, and Sharon Catherine Brown, along with their respective, loving Noahs: Kyle Mangold, Ken Wulf Clark, and Beau Gravitte. In addition each character is played by actors of more than one race.

Under the direction of Michael Greif and Schele Williams, "The Notebook's" well-known love story that opens with a old man reading to a old woman patient in a nursing home comes across as more real than sentimental . In this way, the tears shed by audience members -- and there will be tears -- will have more to do with the realization that this is us -- not a mere projection of pity upon two distant characters.

“The Notebook” runs through Oct. 5 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. $45.50-$186. bushnell.org.