Broadway musicals and plays are full of romance, and it’s not just limited to the stories on the stage! Plenty of couples, past and present, have met and fallen in love while working together on Broadway shows. From stars who turned onstage romances into offstage relationships to couples who technically never actually shared a moment on stage together, there are tons of beautiful Broadway love stories. If you enjoy a good real-life romance as much as you enjoy a good Broadway love song, then keep reading to learn more about some of the sweetest real-life romances lighting up the theater world right now!
Related: 10 More Plays and Musicals to Stream Online After You Finish Hamilton
Terrence Mann and Charlotte d'Amboise
Way back in 1984, Mann was playing the iconic role of Rum Tum Tugger in Cats when d’Amboise took over the role of Cassandra about a year into the show’s run. It was an almost instant attraction, they told Playbill in 2013. “I don’t think we ever dated. We just made out in the tunnels of Cats,” d’Amboise joked. They also starred together in the 2013 revival of Pippin, this time as husband and wife on stage, as well as off.
Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo
Both were contestants on American Idol (in different seasons, of course), but they didn’t actually meet until 2010 when they were cast opposite each other in the Broadway revival of Hair. Young proposed live on an American Idol finale special in 2012, and they married the following year. In an interview with Playbill, the couple revealed that their first kiss was about as unromantic as it gets: “On our very first day of rehearsal, [director Diane Paulus] walked up to us and said, ‘You two are going to have to be very comfortable with each other very quickly, so I’m just going to need you to go ahead and kiss each other right now and just get it over with in front of everyone,'” DeGarmo said.
Brandon Uranowitz and Zachary Prince
Three-time Tony nominee Uranowitz met his partner Prince in an unexpected way: Prince was Uranowitz’s standby! They were both cast in the 2011 musical Baby It’s You!, and after auditioning for the same part, Uranowitz landed the lead and Prince was cast as his standby. They became close friends, but the friendship soon turned into something more. “Before Baby It’s You! started we had both actually made vows to ourselves that we would never ever date anybody in the theatre ever again and then the universe was like, ‘Just kidding!‘ Uranowitz joked to Playbill.
Patrick Page and Paige Davis
OK, so they didn’t technically meet on a Broadway show, just a Broadway tour. Page and Davis – yes, Trading Spaces host Paige Davis – played Lumiere and Babette in the mid-1990s on the first national tour of Beauty and the Beast. They’ve been married since 2001, and have both had their fair share of starring turns on Broadway. Page, in particular, has become the go-to guy for deep-voiced villains, playing the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and, most recently, Hades himself in Hadestown.
Nick Adams and Kyle Brown
In 2010, Adams and Brown were two up-and-coming stars in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and there was much more than glitter flying between them. The couple recounted their meeting to Playbill in 2016, sharing that the flirty nature of the show helped them connect as just a “fun” thing at first, before it blossomed into something more. “I didn’t put that much thought into whether or not it would last. I was just like, “This is fun,” so the fact that it has lasted…is the benefit of that,” Brown said. Adams most recently was in the national tour of Falsettos, while Brown is currently a dancer in Moulin Rouge.
Andy Karl and Orfeh
Over the course of 20 years, the Broadway power couple have appeared in three different shows together. They first met back in 2000, when they both were in the cast of the Broadway adaptation of Saturday Night Fever. They costarred most recently in 2018’s Pretty Woman (in which they had exactly zero scenes together), but it’s their second show together that most people remember them for. In 2007, Orfeh played Paulette and Karl played Kyle the UPS Guy in the musical version of Legally Blonde, stealing the show pretty much every night.
Sebastian Arcelus and Stephanie J. Block
The longtime couple are actually an instance of an onstage romance turning into an offstage one! Back in 2007, Block was playing Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, and Arcelus was cast as her love interest, Fiyero. The onstage sparks turned into a real romance, and they ended up getting married before a performance one night! “I essentially bought her an engagement ring before we officially stated dating, because I just knew I was going to wed her,” Arcelus told CBS in 2018. “One day we got married at City Hall, and that night did the show as a married couple singing ‘As Long as You’re Mine’ to each other onstage.”
Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones
Hamilton brought a lot more than stardom to these costars! The couple met when they were both cast in dual roles in the hit musical: her as Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, him as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton. They got engaged in late 2018, and you can expect to see more of them on the red carpet when things open back up again: Ramos is the star of the upcoming movie musical In the Heights, playing the role originated by the show’s creator (and his onstage BFF in Hamilton) Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Audra McDonald and Will Swenson
McDonald is a bona-fide theater legend (she has more Tony wins than any actor in history), and her husband has been at her side the whole time. The two first met in 2007, when they both starred in a revival of 110 in the Shade. McDonald played Lizzie, and Swenson was the understudy for her love interest Starbuck. They married in 2012 and have one daughter together, as well as three children from their previous relationships.