Actors Katie Barton and Ben Hope made a resolution at the start of this year: to work together as much as they could.

The duo, who wed in May, have been spectacularly busy — but separately: he played the lead role on Broadway in the musical “Once,” and she toured the country as Elvis Presley’s girlfriend in “Million Dollar Quartet.” But those admirable gigs led them to spend a great deal of time in different cities over the past three years. Barton says that she and Hope were apart for most of their engagement.

Fortuitously, their plan to work together succeeded faster than they anticipated. They were hired to portray Tammy Wynette and George Jones in “Stand By Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story” at the Ivoryton Playhouse.

It’s been a wonderful experience, and not just because they are acting in the same show. They’ve also been gifted with two rich roles.

Wynette — dubbed the “First Lady of Country Music” — was one of the biggest and most influential female singer-songwriters in Nashville. She had a tempestuous, tortured relationship with Jones, who was, of course, an iconic country figure.

Barton expects that a lot of people can identify with a “relationship so electric and so passionate but so wrong. Maybe they’re just too similar for it to ever work.”

While Hope has been reading Jones’ autobiography, Barton has been doing the same with Wynette’s autobiography.

“We’ll have arguments on their behalf,” Barton laughs.

Even beyond her tumultuous time with Jones, Wynette had a hugely dramatic life; Barton figures she’d be the perfect candidate for a reality TV show today. (Wynette died in 1998 at age 55, after a lifetime of health issues.)

Barton notes that Wynette became popular at a time when feminism was flourishing, and Wynette got grief for what some people saw as “Stand By Your Man’s” retrograde lyrics. At the same time, there were women who were brought up the way that Wynette was and who were still attached to the idea that the man is the head of the household. In a way, Barton notes, Wynette represents both sides.

“The ironic part was, she was living women’s lib,” Barton says. “She was a woman making it in a man’s business.”

Some examples: She stood up for herself, she drove her own tour bus, and she took care of all the finances and business matters during her marriage to Jones.

Barton adds that the five-times-wed Wynette was an intriguing character from personal perspective, too.

“She was a really strong woman, a strong mother, she raised four girls practically on her own because she was in and out of so many relationships,” Barton says.

She had trouble finding love that lasted for a long time.

“So she’s always trying to figure it out the next time around,” Barton says.

As for playing George Jones, Hope, who leads a country group called Ben Hope and the Uptown Outfit, says it’s an honor to pay tribute to his music. And he gets to dive into Jones’ life and see what motivated his habits, both good and bad.

In reading Jones’ autobiography and other works about the star, Hope learned about where some of his demons might have originated.

“He kind of realized late in his life that his father, which is so Freudian, but his father’s inability to show him that he was proud or that he appreciated what George did in any way — because his father had a terrible drinking problem — led George down a path of self-hatred ... I can see it motivated George to be a terrible drunk and to battle himself, always feeling like he never deserved any of the good things he got.”

It also, though, motivated him to work as hard as he could.

A last note: “Stand By Your Man” is not the first time that Hope and Barton have played a turbulent country-music couple. The last time they worked together before this was when they co-starred as Hank and Audrey Williams in “Hank Williams: Lost Highway” in 2011 at Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston.

“Stand By Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story,” Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday; $42 adults, $37 seniors, $20 students, $15 children; (860) 767-7318.

'Once' in a lifetime

Ben Hope took over the lead role of Guy in "Once" in March of 2013, following a year as an understudy. The Tony-winning musical was Hope's Broadway debut.

"'Once' was an amazingly special thing," he says.

When he auditioned and got a callback, Hope decided to buy a ticket to see the show. He ended up nabbing the last ticket, which happened to be front row, center.

He recalls watching the performance "with my mouth side open and tears streaming down my face and just clapping till my hands hurt. ... It touched me so deeply."

During the curtain call, the lead actor leaned down and told him, "I would pay for you to be here every night."

Flash forward to when Hope walked into his first day of rehearsals.

"Every time I met a cast member, they could go, 'Hey, man. ... Hey, aren't you the guy from the front row?'" Hope recalls with a laugh.

"It felt like kismet a little bit because I was just so deeply moved by the whole experience and I wanted so badly to be a part of it."