Sometimes falling in love onstage can lead to an epic offstage romance — just ask Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson, who met during a production of Once on This Island.
“Les was responsible for helping me figure out all of my blocking,” the Affair actress told Broadway.com in October 2018, explaining that she was asked to join the production just weeks before opening night. “It was not a romantic thing at first. It was really just a human connection, like, ‘Wow, I need to be around this person all the time.’ We stayed in touch after the show and started dating pretty soon afterward.”
She continued: “We didn’t know if the first date was the first date, but it ended up being the first date. None of us were saying that it was a date, but then it for sure was a date when he kissed me at the end of the night.”
The couple’s passion for theater means that they’ve always been supportive of one another during the different phases of their careers. “Before Hamilton, we had to borrow money from my parents to make our rent in time. It’s just a crazy journey. It’s a tough business,” the Broadway vet explained. “When he did his first workshop for Hamilton, he just knew it was something he had to do everything he could to be a part of it. … This is something that we talk about all the time: if you love something enough, if you put your heart toward it and you really love it and digest it and surround yourself with it, you’ll get that thing that you love.”
A shared love of the stage also helped bring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick together. The couple met in November 1991 after the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off star got involved with the Naked Angels Theater Company, which Parker’s brothers Pippin and Toby helped start. In 1996, they took their romance to the Great White Way and starred alongside one another in a production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
“I’m so nervous acting opposite him,” the Sex and the City star told the Los Angeles Times ahead of the show’s debut. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage this without laughing hysterically at each other. We do not discuss it. I don’t even want to rehearse — I’m going to go on stage with a big blinder on my head — I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
She continued to gush about her now-husband: “He’s so bright, so handsome, I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve seen in my life. And he inspires me. I’m mad for him, totally.”
The pair went on to star in a revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, which opened in March 2022 after two years of delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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