"'Til There Was You": Broadway's Best Showmances | Playbill

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Special Features "'Til There Was You": Broadway's Best Showmances Playbill.com offers a look at couples who met while working together onstage. Nice work if you can get it!

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Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Love was in the air offstage at the the Booth Theatre, where the Tony-winning revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? played in 2012-13. Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon, who played George and Honey in Edward Albee's portrayal of marriage, confirmed in June that they were not only involved offstage, the co-stars were engaged.

"We had a little showmance," Coon told the Cap Times.

A showmance, otherwise known as a romance between people working on a show, is nothing new to the theatre community. What else can be expected when a group of creative, passionate people work together in one small space for months on end? Many real-life couples met while performing together, and in honor of all the stage-struck lovebirds out there, we rounded up a list of some off-stage couples who met on stage. 

Click through to see the top Broadway showmances.

Patrick Page and Paige Davis
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Patrick Page and Paige Davis

What's in a name? These two met while on tour with Beauty and the Beast, where Page (Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Spider-Man Turn off the Dark, Cyrano de Bergerac) played Lumiere the Candlestick and Davis (Chicago) played Babette the Broom. When they married, Davis, host of the TLC show "Trading Spaces," did not want to be known as Paige Page, so she chose to keep her maiden name.

Jason Danieley and Marin Mazzie
Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley

Mazzie (Passion, Kiss Me, Kate, Carrie) met Danieley (Candide, The Full Monty, Curtains) when the two performed together in Trojan Women: A Love Story. The love story continued offstage, before returning to Broadway, where and the real-life husband and wife later played a married couple in Next to Normal.

Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs

Taye Diggs (Carousel, Chicago) and Idina Menzel (Wicked, If/Then) met when performing in the original cast of Rent, where Diggs played the corrupt landlord Benny and Menzel originated the role of the flamboyant performing artist Maureen, famously mooning Diggs in the Act One number "La Vie Boheme." The two, who founded the charity A Broader Way, later reunited onstage in The Wild Party and Wicked.

Michelle Federer and Norbert Leo Butz
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Norbert Leo Butz and Michelle Federer

Fiyero may be destined to end up with Elphaba onstage in Wicked, but when Norbert Leo Butz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can, Big Fish) played the bad-boy turned activist, it was Elphaba's younger sister Nessarose, played by Michelle Federer (A Man of No Importance), with whom he lived happily ever after. Butz and Federer married in 2007.

Will Swenson and Audra McDonald
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Audra McDonald and Will Swenson

Things heated up onstage when Audra McDonald (Carousel, Ragtime, The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess) and Will Swenson (Hair, Priscilla Queen of the Desert) took the stage together in 110 in the Shade. Swenson, who was understudying the lead, said sparks flew when he stepped into the role of Bill Starbuck, who romances McDonald's Lizzie.

Jenny Powers and Matt Cavenaugh
Matt Cavenaugh and Jenny Powers

Matt Cavenaugh (West Side Story, Grey Gardens) and Jenny Powers (Little Women, Grease) met when performing at a benefit of The Secret Garden for Rosie's Kids. The married couple have collaborated on the CD "Gonna Make You Love Me" and are now parents; they had their first child July 2012.

Jennifer Cody and Hunter Foster
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Hunter Foster and Jennifer Cody

Hunter Foster (Hands on a Hardbody, Million Dollar Quartet, Little Shop of Horrors) met Jennifer Cody (Shrek the Musical, The Pajama Game) on a tour of Cats. The two, who have been married since 1997, then appeared onstage together in Urinetown.

Kim Crosby and Robert Westenberg

In a real-life story of happily ever after, instead of "agony," Kim Crosby (Jerry's Girls, Guys and Dolls), who played Cinderella in the original cast of Into the Woods, married her onstage prince Robert Westenberg (1776, CompanyThe Secret Garden). 

Robert Westenberg and Kim Crosby in Into the Woods.

Kara Lindsay and Kevin Massey
Photo by Nathan Johnson
Kevin Massey and Kara Lindsay

Kevin Massey (Big River, Tarzan, Memphis) and Kara Lindsay (Newsies) met when playing Almanzo Wilder and Laura Ingalls in the musical Little House on the Prairie. Taking their historical onstage romance into real life, the two marred June 2.

Nathan Johnson and Laura Osnes
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Laura Osnes and Nathan Johnson

Broadway's Cinderella, Laura Osnes (Bonnie and Clyde, South Pacific, Grease) met her husband, photographer Nathan Johnson, when the two understudied for Jasmine and Aladdin in a stage adaptation of the Disney animated musical. The two filled in for the leading roles, who were injured during the magic carpet ride, but they survived the performance and married in 2007.

Stephanie J. Block and Sebastian Arcelus
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Stephanie J. Block and Sebastian Arcelus

Stephanie J. Block (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 9 to 5, The Pirate Queen) met her husband, Sebastian Arcelus (A Time to Kill, Elf, Jersey Boys) while on tour with Wicked. Block was leaving the show as he was coming in, and the two have been "dancing through life" ever since.

Orfeh and Andy Karl
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Orfeh and Andy Karl

Orfeh (Legally BlondeFootloose) and Andy Karl (Legally Blonde, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 9 to 5, Jersey Boys) met when both performed in Saturday Night Fever. They joined forces onstage for Legally Blonde, playing love interests Paulette and Kyle, the sexy UPS guy.

Will Chase and Debra Messing
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Debra Messing and Will Chase

"Will and Grace" star Debra Messing, who will make her Broadway debut in Outside Mullingar, met real-life love Will Chase (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Full Monty, Rent) when the two played on-screen paramours Julia Houston and Michael Swift on the behind-the-scenes Broadway TV show "Smash."

Ashley Spencer and Jeremy Jordan
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Ashley Spencer and Jeremy Jordan

In a modern-day twist, Ashley Spencer (Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Rock of Ages, Grease, Hairspray) first encountered Jeremy Jordan (Bonnie and Clyde, Newsies) in an online video when she was preparing to audition for Rock of Ages and he was a swing in the show. Impressed by his singing skills, Spencer began Facebook messaging Jordan, who gave her some tips for her audition. The advice must have worked, because Spencer was cast, and she and Jordan began dating. They were married September 2012.

 

Brian Stokes Mitchell and Allyson Tucker
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Brian Stokes Mitchell and Allyson Tucker

Tony winner Brian Stokes Mitchell (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Kiss Me Kate, Ragtime) met his wife, Allyson Tucker (Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life, The Will Rogers Follies), when the two appeared in Oh, Kay! The two, who went on to share stage in both Ragtime and Man of La Mancha, married in 1994 and have one son together.

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne

On a historical note, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne met when they co-starred in A Young Man's Fancy in 1919. The two married in 1922 and were Broadway's leading couple for 55 years. They now have a theatre named in their honor.

 

Sarah Brightman and Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman

 

Sarah Brightman caught the eye of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber when auditioning for Cats in 1981. The two later began a relationship and Webber wrote the part of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera for his then wife, which she premiered in London and then on Broadway. Though the two divorced after six years of marriage, they have remained close friends, and Brightman performed in Webber's Song and Dance and Requiem as well as at the 25th anniversary production of The Phantom of the Opera at Royal Albert Hall.

 
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