As Broadway stars, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster must appreciate that their once, not-so-secret, backstage love affair could make for great theater — maybe punctuated by some bittersweet Stephen Sondheim-esque ballads and rousing, Michael Bennett-style dance numbers. As Foster herself said, she and Jackman developed a close bond, and reportedly more, while married to other people and while they co-starred in a Broadway revival of “The Music Man” from late 2021 to early 2023. Foster, 49, explained in a 2022 interview that she and Jackman, 56, enjoyed private, pre-performance meetings in her dressing room, and would sit on the carpet and “catch up on our day.”

“We call it carpet chat,” Foster said.

But it’s now been officially confirmed that there was a lot more to those dressing room chats than just professional bonding. As People magazine shared with the world Tuesday, the former “Music Man” co-stars were photographed the night before, walking down a street in Santa Monica, holding hands, laughing and staring into each other’s eyes.

The Cut said the photographs mark the new couple’s “glossy paparazzi debut” after several years of keeping their romance an “open secret” in Broadway circles — and perhaps a genuine secret to Jackman’s longtime wife Deborah-lee Furness.

In the fall, the New York tabloids and other outlets began reporting that Jackman and Foster had begun a relationship during the run of “The Music Man.” In the classic musical revival, Jackman played conman Harold Hill who falls in love with Foster’s librarian Marian Paroo.

The affair reports began as soon as the Tony Award-winning Foster filed for divorce in October from screenwriter Ted Griffin after 10 years of marriage — “amid buzz” that she was now dating Jackman.

The year before, Jackman and Furness announced that they were separating after 27 years of marriage, but the two spoke of their separation as a mutual decision to “pursue our individual growth.”