Bethany Joy Galeotti

Words

“Musical theater is oh, my dream. My passion. Music is in my veins. Just being able to mix that passion with my other passion, for acting, would be unbelievable. I have to brush up on my dancing, but I’d definitely love to hit Broadway.” ~ Bethany Joy Galeotti

Aside from continuously writing songs with her Everly partner, Amber Sweeney, Bethany Joy Galeotti is turning her talents for writing to the theater.

Bethany spent approximately 3 years writing the libretto and scratching out music for what she thought was a pipe dream… a musical staged version of Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook. She joined forces with a good friend and Grammy nominated producer, Ron Aniello, and together they began polishing the work and soon obtained permission from Sparks to put the show on its feet.

The duo presented a small workshop version of The Notebook in a black-box theater in Wilmington, North Carolina (where Galeotti films One Tree Hill). This workshop utilized Wilmington’s local theater talent and was intended to be a “rough draft run” so the writing team could get their work off the page, onto the stage, and see what they had. The performances took place over a 3-day run and were greeted with an overwhelmingly positive response from audience members. Subsequently, a piano/vocal demo score has been recorded and Galeotti & Aniello are moving forward in their plans to develop the project for stage.

Based on the novel by acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook is an intimate portrait of enduring love set in the small town of New Bern, North Carolina. The tale spans from 1938 to 2005. Music for The Notebook ranges from American Wartime Standard and Swing to Bluegrass and Gospel.

Galeotti has until now kept facts about the musical under wraps; however, on November 2010 in response to Twitter followers who successfully raised more than $2000 in one day for the charity Love146, Galeotti released the song “Troublesome Tongue”. “Troublesome Tongue” features Noah’s father, and his friends explaining Noah’s childhood stutter to new love Allie (played by Galeotti).

In an excerpt from the musical’s playbill, Galeotti describes how she transformed Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook into a musical:

“I fell in love with this story first when I saw the film, and all over again when I read the novel. For months after reading it I found myself walking around the house writing theatrical songs inspired by these characters. I couldn’t stop myself. After about six months of writing songs I decided to put them to good use and began writing a libretto for The Notebook. I wasn’t sure how it would pan out, but I knew I had something inside of me that needed to be released. For the next two years I wrote the libretto and much of the music mostly recording a cappella versions of my songs on my computer (God bless Garage Band!) After I finished the script, I brought the project to my brilliant, genius friend, Ron Aniello, and he made all this music come to life.”