As with most things in their lives, Becca and Nicholas’s story begins with the Palace theatre. Now it doesn’t begin with Newsies, as we will get to that later, but with a headset and a chance encounter. Years before they met officially, Nicholas and Becca came into each others lives in the most ridiculous of ways that would be the calling card of their love: Nicholas being up to no good, and Becca taking none of his shit. Nicholas approached Becca as she was filling in on a show, and saw that she was wearing a headset, commanding the techies like a battle field commander and it was this moment Nicholas decided was a good time to mess with her. He asked to see her headset, an integral part of her job and necessary for her current work, and she told him no. He was a stranger and had no business “being on headset”. “It’s fine!” Nicholas told her, “My name is Nicholas Bradford. I’m something of a local celebrity.” Little did the two of them know that this encounter was the first time that they had a brush with the person that they would be so completely in love with that it would change who they were forever and for the better. Years later, after Nicholas had gone to college and his ego had been slightly curbed and Becca had become established at the Palace and her edges dulled, they met again thanks to each owing a favor to a friend. Becca had been enlisted to fill in the assistant stage manager for Newsies, and Nicholas had been roped into playing a few comedic roles that had a promise of “No dancing and no singing”. Then, one hot, humid, miserable summer night in August, at the holy hell that is the beginning of tech week, they met. And they couldn’t stand each other. Nicholas was loud and brash and flirted with everyone, and Becca was intense and commanding and had no time for his antics. But, as with most things, when you have met the person who is your match, the hard edges melt away. They eventually found common ground in their appreciation for theatre, and their mutual friends, and began to spend more and more time together. The two would spend hours into the night, Nicholas leaning against Becca’s car and chatting beneath the stars, with no care for the fact that they both needed to be up early in the morning. Becca was there for Nicholas when he called her in the middle of the day because he had gotten dental surgery and wanted to chat with someone while the novacaine wore off, and Nicholas moved heaven and earth to make sure that he could take her to dinner on her birthday before she had to go to a show. Then, as they sat together one night and worked on lights, they told each other how they felt. They kissed, and then… magic. Magic The Gathering that is, as on their first date at Emerald Tavern, Nicholas thought it was a good idea to try to teach Becca how to play due to understanding that she liked “deck building games”. Somehow she still agreed to a second date, and then a third, and then they quit being dates and just became their lives as they played board games into the night and texted all throughout the day. They moved in together during the beginning of Covid, a two week sleepover that became three years of happiness, and laughter, and tears, and screams of joy. It became two dogs, a gaming table, four Minecraft servers, over a hundred games of Dungeons and Dragons and more late nights of working on lights than either can even remember. It became a scary year with numerous hospital stays, and a realization that despite it all, they wanted to build a life together, because this was their person. The person who they would choose, over and over again. This is their story. The beginning of their adventure.