How I Tamed the Beast, Chapter 4 – And Then it Clicked

By Dana Stackpole (first chatper here)

We continued to see one another as we moved on to other shows and projects. We spent a summer apart... I was in Chicago doing out of town tryouts for Movin'out and James was at Vassar doing NY Stage and Film and also preparing for a benefit at Lincoln Center of Back from Broadway, a show he and Hershey Felder created together.

We came back to the city in the fall and both continued to work. We would drive down to NJ on days off to visit James's mom. I feel so blessed to have spent time with her over the 4 years before her passing. I was made to feel part of the family by both James's mom and sister. His dad passed in 1999 and I regretfully never knew him.

I am not certain if James Barbour was aware of it but both his mother and sister were secretly pushing for James to settle down and marry me. I remember telling them that I respected where he was at during that point in his life and that we just enjoyed being together.

I had left Movin' Out in the fall of 2003 due to a foot injury I had sustained and James had finished a run in Assassins in 2004.

Life was changing. I started my training to become a Gyrotonic (think Pilates meets yoga) Instructor, something that I have been doing ever since.

James was working on a film with Tom Cavanagh called Alchemy as well as doing readings of A Tale of Two Cities and a PBS Mini Series. After that James then headed back to Los Angeles and I stayed in NYC.

Eventually I started looking for something different career wise... possibly veering from the dance and exercise world. I headed out to Los Angeles and spent 6 months looking at different possibilities. Dabbled in a few things but ultimately came back to my teaching, both in dance and gyrotonic.

The one thing that I did not veer from was my feelings for James. Los Angeles provided our relationship with a renewed platform from which to build upon.

I ended up opening my own Gyrotonic studio in 2006 and James went out on the road with Camelot. It was then that we started to think about life together long term... not that the past 6 years didn't count as long term. We had really found that place where we knew that as individual beings we were totally independent, capable, creative and strong... but as two we were unstoppable and even stronger together.

The thought of family was an idea I had always entertained but now James was seeing it more from my viewpoint. We made the decision to get married one morning while on a visit to NYC for A Tale of Two Cities reading.

It went sort of like: "Let's do it, let's get married!"

We ended up tying the knot in a private ceremony in Los Angeles almost two years ago while he was on a short break from his Camelot tour.

No honeymoon as of yet, too much work to be done, not to mention that we just had our first child 5 weeks ago! But then again... marriage for us has kinda been one big honeymoon.

So we are now up to present time... James wowing the audiences in the brilliant new show A Tale of Two Cities and both of us taking on one the greatest responsibilities ever... being new parents to our amazing daughter, Hudson Raine.

Life is sweeter now that I have tamed my Beast and he has become my Prince (just like when he played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast which I stole for my analogy of course)!