Weepies by Nicholas Sparks are so reliably engineered to produce puddles that “The Notebook,” which opened at the Schoenfeld Theater on Broadway on Thursday night, sells tissues at the merch counter.

I emerged from “The Notebook” like so many other theatergoers: sniffling and damning myself for not bringing tissues. The story, although familiar thanks to the book source material and film ...

That experience is one that fans of Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 debut novel and the beloved 2004 movie version are likely to appreciate, although the creative team — namely book writer Bekah Brunstetter, ...