Before Omicron’s surge caused dozens of people to drop off the guest list for Bryan Terrell Clark and Devario D. Simmons’ wedding, she shut down “Thoughts of A Colored Man,” the Broadway show which counted Mr. Clark as star and Mr. Simmons as costumer. Mr. Clark hated not having the chance to bow one last time with his comrades. But he had his last arc as a single man to look forward to.

“From day one, there was never a question in my head that I was supposed to marry this man,” he said.

Mr Clark, 41, met Mr Simmons, 31, on December 10, 2019. Mr Clark’s best friend Rodrick Covington may be responsible. Earlier that month, Mr Covington had pointed out that Mr Clark, who at the time played George Washington in the Broadway production of “Hamilton”, had become a regular Tinder swiper.

“He was like, ‘What are you looking for?'” Mr. Clark said. “He asked me to describe the man of my dreams.” Next, Mr. Covington asked if Mr. Clark had any friends willing to play matchmaker. When Mr. Clark said yes, Mr. Covington advised him to immediately delete his Tinder app.

“Rodrick is a powerful protester,” Mr. Clark said. On December 9, 2019, while Mr. Clark was dining at Amy Ruth’s in Harlem with actor Stephen Conrad Moore, Mr. Covington’s protest began to take shape.

“Stephen said he knew a great costume designer,” said Mr Clark, who then asked to see a photo and was shown Mr Simmons’. He had the physical qualities of Mr. Clark’s dream man: Mr. Simmons looked fit, “like someone taking care of his temple,” said Mr. Clark, who recalls saying to Mr. Moore that in terms of character, “I was looking for someone who was witty and a good communicator.”

That night, Mr. Moore introduced the pair on Instagram, writing, as Mr. Simmons recalled, “‘Hey gentlemen, I think you’re both great people and you should check in.’ “” In response, Mr Simmons said: “Thank you. I’m sure we’ll kick it off soon so we can connect privately.”

The following night, they met at Hell’s Kitchen, a restaurant in that area of ​​Manhattan. Mr. Simmons, who at the time was working on costumes for the Off Broadway show “Tumacho”, lived nearby. Mr. Clark, who lived in Los Angeles, was temporarily staying on the Upper West Side for “Hamilton.” A feeling of complicity quickly invades them.

“It wasn’t necessarily the kind of thing where as soon as you see the person there are fireworks,” Clark said. “It was more like I felt like I already knew him. It was so easy.

The two men had enjoyed formative relationships that were anything but easy. Mr. Clark grew up in Baltimore with a younger brother and sister. He was approaching his teens when he began to realize that his father, George Clark, a factory worker, had a drug problem. “He was this tumultuous energy in and out of our lives,” Mr. Clark said.

His parents divorced in 2002, the same year George Clark, who still lives in Baltimore, got sober. Father and son reunited soon after. Now, “my dad is one of my best friends,” said Clark, who also includes his mother, Tanya Young, a retired elementary school principal and pastor who lives in Decatur, Ill., among his closest confidants. But dating her in her early twenties was difficult.

“My dad told me what every son wants to hear, which is ‘I love you unconditionally,'” he said. But when Mr Clark first discussed his sexuality with his mother, a former Sunday school teacher at a non-denominational church, after graduating from Temple University in 2003, “she said “I struggle with my belief system,” he recalled. . She was still struggling when he enrolled at the Yale School of Drama, where he earned a master’s degree in acting in 2006, and continued well into Mr. Clark’s Broadway career when he was cast. as Marvin Gaye in “Motown the Musical” in 2013.

“My mother wasn’t fully accepted until we were married,” he said.

Mr. Simmons’ early life in Greenville, SC was marked by the death of his father, Raymond Simmons, in a motorcycle accident when he was 7 years old. “It changed my life in ways I couldn’t imagine,” he said. “I had to grow up instantly.”

He and his younger sister and brother were raised by his mother, Kimeco Williams, who owns a local hair salon, and his grandmother, Helena C. Williams. Being the eldest left him in a position of authority that he often didn’t feel ready for. “I had to make a lot of choices that I wouldn’t have had to make if my dad had been there,” he says.

The choice to come out at 21 – just before he graduated from Clemson University in 2013 – was as difficult for Mr Simmons as it was for Mr Clark. “Being from this part of the country, I was always taught that being gay was wrong and wrong,” said Mr. Simmons, who earned a master’s degree in costume design from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2016. But Helena Williams, who still talks to her grandson three times a day from her home in Greenville, “helped me to say my article,” he said.

Both Mr. Simmons and Mr. Clark understood the value of an honest conversation long before they met. But each had struggled to get there, not only with their parents, but also with their former partners. So when they arrived at the restaurant for their first date, their intentions, set separately, were aligned.

“A lot of people try to hide things on first dates,” Mr. Simmons said. “I showed up with the attitude of, nothing is taboo.” For example, “I was good talking about how I would like to have children in the future.” Mr. Clark agreed with that too.

He was less up for the idea of ​​saying goodbye to Mr Simmons when his six-week run at ‘Hamilton’ ended in February 2020, and he was due in Vancouver to play a part in the TV show “Snowpiercer”. The couple had become as inseparable as Mr. Clark’s acting schedule would allow, and “Snowpiercer”, along with a subsequent speaking tour that Mr. Clark had already booked, meant spending weeks apart.

Before long, however, they were back together. In March 2020, as the pandemic gripped the country, Mr. Clark, who had by then returned home to Los Angeles, invited Mr. Simmons to quarantine with him. “It could have been a nightmare,” Mr. Clark said. “I was inviting someone I had only been dating for a few months to come stay with me for what we thought would be weeks.” Instead, they were locked up together at Mr. Clark’s home for five months.

One morning in the summer of 2020, Mr. Clark woke up without Mr. Simmons by his side. He found him in the kitchen. “Devario had never really cooked in New York, but he was there, making breakfast,” he said. “He’s from South Carolina – he was making crab cakes and grits. That’s the day I started looking for rings.

As of December 31, 2020, Mr. Clark and Mr. Simmons had both returned to work. Mr. Clark was in Canada, this time to film a role in the Disney+ movie “Sneakerella.” Mr. Simmons was in Greenville, teaching distance education at Ithaca College, where he was an assistant professor in the theater department. To celebrate the New Year, Mr. Clark had thrown a party on a boat for a dozen friends in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he and Mr. Simmons would meet.

At the stroke of midnight, both had sea legs and glasses of champagne. Before Mr. Simmons had a chance to sip his, Mr. Clark got down on one knee and proposed. Mr. Simmons gasped and gave a stunned and ecstatic “yes”.

Their Jan. 1 wedding took place in the Chandelier Room at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. The celebration actually started on December 31, 2021, to reflect their engagement. At 10:30 p.m., their 148 vaccinated guests (compared to 175 due to the Omicron push) began mingling over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. When it was time to begin the countdown to the New Year, they paused as two officiants, married Broadway actors John Eric Parker and Charles West, both ordained by the Universal Life Church for the occasion, asked guests to reach out and say a prayer for future husbands.

Mr. Simmons and Mr. Clark, in matching tuxedos which Mr. Simmons helped design, stood on a landing holding hands to receive this prayer, before Mr. Parker, as chief officiant, delivers them at the end of the night. The new year began with the arrival of a choir, singing “Wanna Be Happy?” by Kirk Franklin. The bride and groom exchanged wedding rings and were declared married, with the crowd roaring in appreciation as they hugged and kissed.

That day

When January 1, 2022

Or The Chandelier Room at Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California.

VIP Mr. Clark and Mr. Simmons were the stars of the evening, but not the only ones in the room. Several actors were in attendance, including Angela Bassett, Aisha Hinds, Courtney Vance, John Clarence Stewart and Yvonne Orji (“My best friend,” Clark said).

Crabs times two Instead of a sit-down dinner, guests snacked throughout the evening. Each groom chose a past menu from two separate service stations. Mr. Clark’s included Maryland crab cakes and Parmesan grits. Mr. Simmons had lobster mac and cheese and chicken and waffles.

Back home Mr. Clark and Mr. Simmons did not return to Los Angeles after their honeymoon in Colombia, but to Manhattan, where they began renting an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen in 2021. Both hope for a return to normalcy on Broadway , although they always will. lament the premature closure of “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” the first show written and directed by black men with black men in lead roles. “Saying goodbye to something so groundbreaking was heartbreaking,” Clark said.