Amanda Jane Cooper on Her Don Quixote Dream & the Stage Door Encounter That Changed Everything

It's good to see her, isn't it? Former Wicked star Amanda Jane Cooper has had quite an interesting month. After ending her concert tour in Israel early due to the COVID-19 crisis, Cooper was faced with a bridal dilemma: What do you do when your wedding is supposed to take place during an international pandemic? Cooper, along with now-husband Andrew Bell, acted quickly to rescue the big day they had been planning. In a new episode of #LiveatFive: Home Edition, Cooper talks with Broadway.com's Paul Wontorek about her bike ride to city hall, how Glinda still lives on and her unusual dream role.

Cooper first met Bell at church when he greeted her at the front door. After months of seeing each other on-and-off due to Wicked's changing performance schedule, the pair had a fateful stage door moment that seems straight out of a romantic comedy. "[Andrew]'s on his way home from business dinner going northbound in a cab," Cooper said. "The cab was supposed to turn on 55th; it did not. For some reason—providence—it turned on 51st, which is where the stage door for the Gershwin is. It was right when people were lining up after the show, so he stopped the cab to get out. It literally was like a movie moment. He gets out of the cab and the stage door opens, and in that same moment, I walk out. At first he was like, 'This is a huge mistake. Should I go home?' He didn't, thank goodness. He went to the back of the line and I saw him and we shared this really special moment. He didn't ask me out that night, but it was definitely the moment that started it all."

Originally planning to get married on April 25 in the Pennsylvania countryside, Cooper had to reasses what her dream wedding would look like in the face of coronavirus. "We have been waiting to live together our whole relationship and we didn't want quarantine apart, but we wanted to wait until we were married to live together," she said. "On March 18th we looked at each other and were like, 'Should we go get a New York license just in case courts and state lines close?' We hopped on our Citi Bikes and biked six miles down to the clerk's office. I was wearing a white sweater, thank God, because it was that day that we got legally married."

The couple was married, but they knew they needed to do something more like their original plan to make it feel real. "It's just not how we imagined that everything would unfold," Cooper said. "We were like, 'Let's not wear our rings yet—let's not call each other husband and wife.' We wanted to wait to have a ceremony that was a little more thought out." On April 4, Cooper and Bell held a Zoom wedding ceremony on the roof their New York City apartment building. They got to celebrate their marriage, white wedding dress and all, with their family and friends watching online thanks to several phone hot spots and helpful neighbors, who stayed more than six feet away, to make sure there were no technical glitches. "We were literally living on a prayer because there was no WiFi on this rooftop," Cooper said. "We had a laptop with our pastor Jon Tyson officiating and my dad actually walked me down the aisle via FaceTime call. Amidst everything going on, we've had a good dose of perspective. We had some moments of sadness and disappointment, but all things considered, we're super blessed to be healthy and have each other and get to tell this story."

It's been over a year since Cooper was flying high in a bubble as Glinda in Wicked, and that time away has made her love the role even more. "It's always fun to see the commercial and billboard in Times Square," Cooper said. "She'll always be a part of me. That show's just changed my life. It's really cool seeing my friends do their thing with it, like with Ginna Claire [Mason] right now. It's a real sisterhood. There's a little sparkle of Glinda that lives on even in my daily life." (It's important to note that Bell, who had to be told the difference between a musical and play when he first started dating Cooper, says that he thinks he would be able to survive being quarantined with Glinda, but not Galinda.)

Cooper says she is itching to get back on stage. "I did a movie over the summer but definitely want to come back [to the stage]," she said. "I love the music from Man of La Mancha. 'The Impossible Dream' is a favorite of mine, and I'd love to sing it. Playing Don Quixote and singing that song would be fun."

Watch Cooper talk about her favorite Wicked moments and more in the full epsiode below!