BWW Exclusive: Celebrate Valentine's Day with Some of Broadway's Favorite Couples!
By: Monroe George Feb. 14, 2019
You've watched them fall in love on and off stage of some of Broadway's biggest shows, but now BroadwayWorld is letting you in on some of the sweetest moments between your favorite Broadway couples including Jenn Colella and Chilina Kennedy, Jessica Rush and Eric Anderson, Robyn Hurder and Clyde Alves, Laurel Harris and Rob Marnell, and Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett.
Read below for part one of our exclusive two part feature!
Jenn Colella and Chilina Kennedy
How They Met:
"I [Chilina] met her before she met me because I saw her in Come From Away. And I may or may not have stalked her a little on the street. Some people were trying to set us up together, so I took a different path to work than I usually did and was like, "Oh, there she is! Outside of the building!". And then we went out for drinks with everybody the night a few of us from the show [Beautiful] went to see Come From Away."
Their First Date:
"Chilina was singing the anthem at a Raptors and Knicks, and she'd asked me if I'd wanted to get a drink that night and I knew she was singing the national anthem, and I wanted to hear that. I was trying to be chill and not get ready in a hurry and still had a couple of hours left. She texted me during the game and I was like, "Ah, yeah, whatevs, sure, I'll be right there, just gotta get cute, no sweat." Sweat. But I got to meet her at the game which was cool because she was in this VIP room, and had these baller seats, and she looked really, really good. And then we went to Flute".
A Favorite Moment:
"Yoga retreat in Tulum. Hands down. We were with this group of beautiful, beautiful women who were all practising yoga and doing these classes with us everyday and it was just a wonderful, meditative, spiritual time. It was the first time we'd gotten to see each other out of the city for the long time, so we could walk more slowly, talk more slowly. We had genuine quiet time, and we were both at our most peaceful, and our most joyful and it was truly an extraordinary trip".
Jenn Colella and Chilina Kennedy
Jenn Colella and Chilina Kennedy
Jenn Colella and Chilina Kennedy
How They Met:
"We met in high school doing a community theatre production Cinderella at Raleigh Little Theatre. Laurel was sixteen, and I was seventeen. I pretty much fell in love with her before she fell in love with me".
Their First Date:
"We'd been just playfully, not romantically, seeing each other, and there was this one date where I'd [Laurel] decided that it was going to be the last time I saw him. I was going to this meeting at Caribou Coffee to basically tell him that it was never going to happen, and he spills hot chocolate all down his shirt... and it was really cute. We get in his car after that, Dave Matthews' 'Crash' came on, and we slowly leaned in and kissed each other and that was it. I was pinned".
"I don't know how you went from, 'Oh, I'm gonna break up with this guy... and then I kiss you, and you're like, in love with me".
"You're a good kisser".
A Favorite Moment:
"It's kind of obvious, so I will say it. When we got to play opposite each other as Carole and Gerry in Beautiful on Broadway. That was a huge full circle moment. It was the first show we'd ever done together professionally, and then getting to play opposite each other as these iconic people - not characters. It was beyond anything that we could've imagined as two kids from Raleigh, North Carolina who had the same voice teacher".
Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett
How They Met:
"I [Ginna Claire] was friends with his sister from college. After my freshman year I was working my first professional summer stock theatre during Thoroughly Modern Millie, and had went to hang out with my friend and met her big brother. There's no better setup than getting with your friend's brother, right? Like... if this worked, my friend could be my future sister!"
Their First Date:
"I [Eric] took her to go see fireworks. It was the third of July, and there was this reservoir place where they do concerts and fireworks".
"We bought a picnic blanket and Chipotle. There was a light band, so we did some swing dancing, well I started teaching him how to swing dance, he bought me some ice-cream, we watched fireworks".
A Favorite Moment:
"When I asked her to marry me. She was doing a summer stock show in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, and I drove out to surprise her. I arranged with her friend to get her up before sunrise, and I was waiting out on a dock by this lake with flowers as the sun rose. The first thing Ginna Claire thought when she saw me was, "Oh my god, I'm ruining someone's surprise!".
Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett
Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett
Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett
Ginna Claire Mason and Eric Moffett
Jessica Rush and Eric Anderson
How They Met:
"We met doing a show in Los Angeles. He [Eric] was the villain and I was the ingénue. We met and became friends doing that, and we started dating when we did The Last Five Years together that summer. Thirteen years ago this year".
Their First Date:
"During Pilgrim, Jessica and I started hanging out and getting lunch together all the time. She'd never has sushi before, so I introduced her to that and we ended up going out having that a lot on our breaks. So our first dates started casually as friends, and then romantically kind of evolved romantically into a relationship".
"I [Jessica] often tell people that I don't remember the moment in time when it turned. It was just such a seamless growth. There was a day a few weeks into rehearsals for The Last Five Years when we drove from Sacramento into the Redwoods, and went to the Mirror Woods and had lunch and went to the beach, and just drove around. And that day there was a conversation where he said his sister had asked if his sister was falling in love with me, and he told her that every time one of wants to say it, we just say 'I'm crazy about you'. I'd say that weekend was the date that solidified our relationship, and was the date that counted".
A Favorite Moment:
"My favorite memory is right now. Personally, I think our love is stronger than ever. If we're doing something right, it should be" - Eric
"There's a specific picture I [Jessica] have of him holding Elliot the day she was born, and seeing that happen and him holding our daughter. I remember waking up from a nap in the hospital maybe two days after Elliot had been born, and she was in a bassinet at the foot of the bed and Eric was just leaning over, singing to her. It makes me cry. It was so sweet".
"The fact that this child was born out of our love for each other, so the fact that she was such a rockstar in bringing our child into the world. I've [Eric] never wept like that before. I didn't feel my body cry, but I felt tears just stream from my eyes - and I haven't since cried like that either. It was the most magical moment of our life together, and the most magical thing I'd ever witnessed".
Eric Anderson and Jessica Rush
Eric Anderson and Jessica Rush
Eric Anderson and Jessica Rush
Caitlin Houlahan and Ryan Vona
How They Met:
"I [Ryan] was doing Once on Broadway with Shannon O'Boyle, who went to school with Caitlin, and one day she comes up to me is like, 'Hey... I've got a girl for you'. She messaged Caitlin something along the same lines, and then we met one day after the show at Glasshouse Tavern. The first pictures Shannon showed me of Cait were her dressed as a burrito. And Albert Einstein. And so I saw those pictures and I was like, 'That's enough, let's do it'".
A Favorite Date:
"The past two years we've gone to the Westminster Dog Show for Valentine's Day. So we spend the whole day watching all the dogs get primped up, and then you see them compete that night. So it's a dog-ful day".
A Favorite Moment:
"We got these edible bubbles for our dog and cat, Moony and Bellatrix, and every time we blow bubbles, Moony gets really excited and he chomps at them trying to get them. And for some reason, Ryan blew the bubbles and as Moony went after them and, in the voice of Prof. McGonagall, he said "Do your duty to our school!" and suddenly it felt like Moony was protecting us from the bubbles".
Ryan Vona and Caitlin Houlahan
Ryan Vona and Caitlin Houlahan
Ryan Vona and Caitlin Houlahan
How They Met:
"We first met in 2001 at Maine State Music Theatre. I [Robyn] was 19, he was 21. I was an intern, he was on an equity contract. I looked at him for like, one second and I was obsessed. We didn't talk that summer. Three years go by and we end up working at MSTS again, and that's when we started dating. A month after the summer ended we moved in together and got dogs.
"We just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on the first of February. We still like each other a lot. Of course we love each other, but it's really important to like each other too. And we still like hanging out together too!"
Their First Date:
"There was this one place in Maine that everyone would go to after to the show, and we would sit up at the bar with the cast and we would obviously be sitting next to each other and talking to each other all the time. Everyone thought we were together long before we actually were... but we weren't. We were just talking and talking, and bonding over many Long Island Ice Teas. After a couple of weeks, I (Robyn) took him to Old Orchard Beach that's kind of trashy, but super fun.
It was a Sunday night and there was this random foam party that was so nasty, and it was literally just him and I. So we had some shots, and then we sat on beach and got itchy and cold, so we took off our clothes. We had my parent's car and we'd gotten stuck in the parking lot because it was so late, so Clyde tried to squeeze through these two pillars which weren't meant for a car to squeeze through and scratched the side of the car. But, we got out!"
A Favorite Memory:
"We've lived through so many chapters. There was a time in our life when we lived up in Maine, and then we moved here to New York and Robyn's career picked up pretty quickly - just as I said it would. We'd both be in Broadway shows, and we'd go out every night and enjoy the city... almost every single night. We nailed our twenties. Those were amazing, amazing times when we really just enjoyed the city before our next chapters".
Photo Credit: Monroe George
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