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Amanda Lori Yesnowitz and Brendan Michael McGrady were married Dec. 16 at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Zuleima Astol, a member of the New York City clerk’s office, officiated.
The bride, 47, is a writing professor at N.Y.U. and a New York-based musical theater writer. She recently wrote “MAY/DECEMBER,” a musical that opened Dec. 15 at the Duplex Cabaret Theater in Manhattan. She also wrote the lyrics for “Somewhere in Time,” a 2013 musical adaptation of the 1980 film starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In 2018, she received the Kleban Prize, one of two cash prizes of $100,000 given to a lyricist and a librettist. (The award, given to those in musical theater whose work shows great potential, is named for the late Edward Kleban, the Tony Award-winning lyricist of “A Chorus Line.”)
She graduated from Tufts, and received two master’s degrees, one in music from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in Boston, and the other in musical theater writing from N.Y.U.
She is the daughter of Arlene L. Yesnowitz of East Rockaway N.Y., and the late Gilbert Yesnowitz.
The groom, 29, is a New York-based actor and a bartender at the Odeon in Manhattan. In June, he played the character, Ken, in John Logan’s play “Red,” at the Old Castle Theater in Bennington, Vt. He also graduated from N.Y.U.
He is the son of Susan McGrady of Aliso Viejo, Calif.
Ms. Yesnowitz wrote a song — “The Thing About Dylan” — about meeting Mr. McGrady in June 2012. “We met across a crowded room, some divey bar on Mott and Broome,” the song begins.
“And that’s how it started, as a two-week tryst between a millennial old soul and a flirty-something New Yorker, born, bred and bageled in Brooklyn,” said Ms. Yesnowitz, using the word “flirty,” as a substitute for “thirty.” (She was 39 when they met; he was 21.) “Neither of us was looking for a commitment.”
Mr. McGrady, who grew up in Laguna Beach, Calif., was soon on his way to Los Angeles to follow his dreams of becoming an actor. “Amanda and I had a great time together,” Mr. McGrady said. “But when I flew back to L.A., I just assumed we were over.”
But while Mr. McGrady was away, he and Ms. Yesnowitz talked on the phone for several hours each night, and their relationship became more friendly than romantic. “The 18-year age difference seemed nonexistent as we chatted about everything ranging from the minutiae of our day to the meaning of life,” Ms. Yesnowitz said.
In January 2013, her song was performed by Jessica Phillips (who plays Heidi Hansen in “Dear Evan Hansen”) at a concert at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan, and Mr. McGrady was in the audience.
“It was really cool to just sit there and watch and listen,” he said, adding, “No one had ever written a song about me before.”
In May 2013, Mr. McGrady found himself in the company of Ms. Yesnowitz yet again, as he made his way to Portland Center Stage in Oregon to be her opening-night date for the premiere of Ms. Yesnowitz’s musical, “Somewhere in Time,” about two people from different times.
“That was the first time I had ever seen Amanda perform, and I was just blown away,” Mr. McGrady said. “At that point we had already talked so often on the phone that it felt as if we had never stopped seeing each other.”
Before the curtain closed, he had made up his mind to return to New York to be with Ms. Yesnowitz, who said that waiting more than seven years to marry Mr. McGrady “was more about me than him.”
“I never really saw myself making that traditional choice,” she said.