During the 2018 production of “Ragtime” for the AfterWork Theater in Manhattan, Molly Antoinette Shoemaker and Cody James Wymore were determined to keep things professional. She was the show’s director and he, the music director.

Their interaction, however, went beyond professional for Mr. Wymore. He brought in leftover meals like Dijon chicken and cheeseburgers for Ms. Shoemaker — except they weren’t actually left over. He had purposefully prepared them just for her.

When eight weeks of production wrapped in March 2018, Ms. Shoemaker wrote in her end-of-show note to Mr. Wymore that she would like to take him out to dinner to repay him for all the meals he cooked. In his note, Mr. Wymore admitted that he liked her.

By their first date, two weeks later, they had already shared a kiss on a bench in Washington Square Park before a wrap party for the cast.

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“I think I got there first and then Cody got there and we talked a little bit, and that’s when we kissed for the first time,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “Since then it felt, for me at least, that this is good.”

Both seemed to think there was something solid to their relationship when they headed out on that first date to see the film “Isle of Dogs” in Union Square, followed by dinner at a now-closed restaurant nearby.

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