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,

Aya Maceda and Kurt Arnold really didn’t want a second home in the country — or so they thought. But that was before the pandemic coaxed them into sampling rural life in upstate New York. “It was never this attractive thing for us,” said Ms. Maceda,