Meet the 28-year-old director behind 'The Notebook'
Why Tony winner Clint Ramos picked Nicholas Polonio to helm "The Notebook, The Musical."
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Why Tony winner Clint Ramos picked Nicholas Polonio to helm "The Notebook, The Musical."
Outside theater circles, Nicholas Polonio is hardly a household name. Yet at just 28, the Filipino-American director has built the kind of résumé many theater artists spend decades chasing.
Before Theatre Group Asia (TGA) chose him to direct the international premiere of The Notebook, The Musical, Polonio had served as associate director on the Tony Award-winning Slave Play and worked on productions at Shakespeare's Globe, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Center Encores!, and, most recently, La Cage aux Folles starring Billy Porter and Wayne Brady.
Those credits convinced Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, TGA's Overall Artistic and Creative Director, to entrust Polonio with one of the company's biggest productions.
The Notebook, The Musical is based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 bestselling novel, which later became a hit 2004 film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. The stage adaptation features a book by Bekah Brunstetter and music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson.
After its world premiere in Chicago in 2022, the musical opened on Broadway in 2024 and earned three Tony Award nominations, including Best Book of a Musical.
One thing audiences should not expect from TGA's staging is a Broadway copy.
"I don't think there would be any staging in this that looks like the Broadway production," Polonio said during an intimate media roundtable at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater on 21 July. "That was part of the big excitement to me."
After watching the Broadway production, he left convinced that he wanted to stage the musical in his own way.
"I loved the script, was totally bowled over by the score and the performances," he recalled. "But when I left, I thought, 'It would be amazing to stage this myself.'"
Rather than recreate the original, Polonio envisions a visually distinct production inspired by classic Hollywood romance, with North Carolina's coastal landscape serving as a key visual influence.
"I'm very excited for how much we're able to lean into these very romantic places by the ocean," he shared. "This production is about getting to build a production around this space, this cast and our designers."
"The idea of replicating something feels like something another director could do," he added.
The same approach guides Polonio's work in the rehearsal room.
"I've asked folks not to spend too much time with the cast recording," he said. "They have an idea of what these songs mean. I have a different idea of what some of these songs mean."
Instead of asking performers to follow the Broadway portrayals, he wants them to discover the characters for themselves.
"I try to find the most incredible artists and set up the conditions for them to do the best work of their life," he said. "I don't necessarily come in and say, 'It's got to be this.' I want artists to walk away feeling they became the artist they've always wanted to be."
For Polonio, The Notebook also fulfills a long-held goal.
"I've always wanted to come work in the Philippines ever since I started doing theater," he said. "To me, the Manila musical theater audience is the most exciting musical theater audience in the world. They're tasteful, rigorous, collaborative, and people just want to talk about theater."
The opportunity took time to sink in.
"It was literally a dream come true," he said. "I think I was in shock for two weeks. And then it became immense gratitude and responsibility."
The Philippine production stars Morissette as Middle Allie, Sheena Belarmino as Young Allie and Celeste Legaspi as Older Allie, alongside Laurence Mossman as Middle Noah, Benedix Ramos as Young Noah and Rody Vera as Older Noah. It opens on 3 September at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati.
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