“It’s been a few minutes since I’ve been on Broadway,” reflects Dorian Harewood about his return to the New York stage in “The Notebook” almost 50 years after his last outing. The last show in which he appeared was “The Mighty Gents” back in 1978, and the actor calls his homecoming “very exciting.” He had not read the novel “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks or seen the film when he first auditioned, but after receiving strong feedback from the creative team, he watched the 2004 movie and was struck that it starred James Garner in the role of Older Noah. He and the late Garner had worked together on two projects and he remembers saying to the spirit of the late actor, “I’m gonna be doing your role in the musical.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“The Notebook” has resonated with audiences for nearly 30 years, and Harewood believes it is such a powerful story because of “the universality of love and the power of love that touches every human being.” The veteran actor plays the role of Older Noah and shares this central character in the story with actors John Cardoza and Ryan Vasquez, who each play the man at earlier points in his life. He credits book writer Bekah Brunstetter, composer Ingrid Michaelson and co-directors Michael Greif and Shele Williams for how organically it feels that they are all playing the same character because “we had been given so much information that all we had to do is play it… I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s very comfortable to get into those characters.”
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Harewood performs the opening number of the musical, “Time,” in which his character reflects on what the years have done to his body and the effect it has on memory, all the while the audience gets introduced to the younger versions of Noah and his wife Allie (played by Jordan Tyson and Joy Woods). The actor describes the song as “extremely exciting. It’s invigorating, it’s life-affirming.” The whole sequence has been “intricately choreographed by the terrific choreographer Katie Spelman” and, as the performer describes it, “shows right away the different hues or the different sizes and shapes and colors” of the three versions of Allie and Noah, capturing “the human experience.”
Most of Harewood’s time on stage is spent with actress Maryann Plunkett, who plays Older Allie to his Older Noah. The pair essentially star in a two-hander play within the larger musical, especially since their scenes in the first act all involve Older Noah reading the title notebook about how the couple met, fell in love, drifted apart and found their way back to each other to his wife, who is suffering the effects of memory loss. The Emmy nominee calls his costar Plunkett “an unbelievable actor,” sharing, “It’s been a glorious experience for me to work with her. She’s very organic, she’s very real, there’s no pretensions… she just embodies that character… I play off of her… I’m listening, I’m watching what she’s doing, and it’s dictating what my character will do.”
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Older Noah and Allie are on stage for almost the entire first act, as Noah reads the story of their relationship to Allie while “hoping that that will ignite some memories for her.” As Harewood explains, in the first half of the show, he doesn’t look at the younger versions of the characters acting out their love story because “it’s suggesting to the audience that I’m reading this to her.” That dynamic changes in the second act, though, when Older Noah is no longer able to read the notebook to his wife and must fight to be reunited with her. From this point on, the actor looks at and tries to interact with the younger versions of the characters because, as he relates it, “I am being invigorated and being sustained and being uplifted by memories of our love, of our years of love… I couldn’t go on if I weren’t buoyed by those memories.”
“The Notebook” is an incredibly emotional show for Harewood’s character, who not only hopes to help his wife remember him and the life they have shared, but also suffers a stroke and may lose the little time he has left with the love of his life. As the performer says, “The second act and toward the end there is very challenging for me… very grueling.” “I’m surprised myself that I’m able to reach that emotional level every show,” reflects the actor, though he says that what makes that mountain easier to climb eight shows a week is working with Plunkett, who “is such a brilliant actor that all I have to do is work with her, look at her… and it just happens.”