Come From Away is a Tony Award-winning musical that tells the remarkable true story of the events that unfolded when 38 planes were ordered to land unexpectedly in the small town of Gander in Newfoundland following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. The show arrived at New Theatre Oxford on Tuesday, 23 April.
When the airspace over North America was closed on 9/11, all airborne planes were forced to land at the nearest airport, and inbound flights from Europe diverted to Canada. The town of Gander in Newfoundland suddenly found itself playing host to 6,579 passengers and crew and 19 animals, almost doubling its 10,000-strong population.
The musical portrays how the residents of Gander, on the northeastern tip of a province nicknamed The Rock by locals, welcomed the stranded passengers or ‘come from aways’ (as the locals call people not born there) with open arms, coming together in the face of adversity, forming unexpected friendships and finding hope in a time of darkness.
It celebrates the kindness, generosity, and unity that emerged from the tragedy, emphasizing the power of human connection and compassion. The musical features a diverse cast of characters, reflecting the range of nationalities and backgrounds of the people affected by the events of 9/11.
The first female American Airlines captain, the quick-thinking town mayor, the mother of a New York firefighter and the eager local news reporter are among the many real characters caught at the start of the moment that changed the course of history and whose stories became a true celebration of hope, humanity and unity.
Heading out on its first-ever UK and Ireland tour, this critically acclaimed show has come directly from the West End, where it notched up over 1000 performances and played to more than 850,000 people at the Phoenix Theatre. The international hit musical has celebrated record-breaking engagements on Broadway, in Canada, throughout Australia, and on a 60-city North American Tour.
In its North American homeland, the show has won numerous awards. It was named Best Musical at the Drama Desk Awards, Christopher Ashley won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical and the Outer Critics’ Circle awarded it Outstanding New Broadway Musical, to name just a few of the many accolades bestowed on it. Over here, it received the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Musical and netted four What’s On Stage Awards, including Best New Musical, along with four Olivier Awards, again including Best New Musical.
The production started as a small workshop in Canada. Book, music and lyrics are by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, who began writing the production after a visit to Gander on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The writing partners and husband and wife couple interviewed the townsfolk, as well as the come from aways who had journeyed back there to mark the occasion.
They found the locals to be just as welcoming as they are in the show. “They would invite us into their house,” David smiles, “and say ‘Don’t be spending money on a hotel, just come stay with us’. They’d give us the keys to their house and then they’d leave and they’d say ‘Just feed the cats’. We came back with lifelong friends and a million stories to tell.”
Those stories, collected across hours of interviews, were whittled down into a 100-minute musical, with Irene saying: “It’s so important to be sharing the story of people who reacted to something horrible in a positive light. We spend so much time focussing on the negative and I think it’s important to show the other side – people responding with kindness and people responding as a community.”
According to Claude Elliot, Gander town mayor, “On the first day, we had 7,000 strangers. On the third day, we had 7,000 friends. And on the fifth day, 7,000 family members.”
Beverley Bass, the first American Airlines captain, recalls how being interviewed by Sankoff and Hein across four hours back in 2011 brought back so many memories. When she and her passengers deplaned, there were tables and tables of food waiting for them in the terminal. “The people of Gander, I guess, had cooked all night long,” Bass recounts. “I mean, there was food for everybody. I knew immediately that the people were the nicest people I have ever been around in my life. It didn’t matter what you needed or what you wanted, it was there.”
In 2015, Bass got a call from the producers inviting her to see the show in San Diego. “I went to it sight unseen, and I had no idea that my role was so prominent, and I certainly didn’t know that a song had been written called Me and the Sky, which basically chronicles my aviation life. It was astounding. By the end of it, my head was buried in my hands because I was just sobbing.
“I’m honoured that my story is impacting young girls to this day. Sharing my story with audiences has been life-changing and I’m so grateful to be a part of this show’s journey. The musical is so true, it is so real. What a gift it has been to the world. The show gets a standing ovation every time because people like how something so beautiful managed to come out from such a tragedy.”
Complete strangers Nick Marson and Diane Kirschke were on the same flight from Gatwick bound for Texas, where British oil executive Nick had business to attend to while American Diane, a buyer for a department store, was on her way home after visiting her UK-based son.
They were both divorced and not seeking romance, but across their five-day stay where they were invited to get-togethers and singalongs, and they fell for each other. When their plane finally took off, they were smitten. There’s a scene in the show where the stewardess is bringing towels for everyone, and she goes, ‘Hot towels? Hot towels?’ all the way down the plane. When she gets to Nick and Diane, she says, ‘Cold towels?’ That’s exactly how it happened.
The couple kept in touch through emails and phone calls before Nick proposed on the phone two months later. He moved to the US soon afterwards, they got married in 2002 and had their honeymoon in Newfoundland, with Marson saying of the time they originally spent there: “I think it’s made me a better person. I try to be my best self every day, be happy, make other people happy and make them laugh.”
Also featured in the show is Bonnie Harris, who worked in Gander’s animal shelter. She took it upon herself to look after dogs, cats, chimpanzees and assorted other animals that were on board the grounded planes, humbly saying of the townsfolk’s kindness: “We didn’t do this for a thank you. We did it because it needed to be done.”
The thousands of recipients of that kindness included Kevin Jung and Kevin Tuerff, a gay couple who worked together at the latter’s environmental PR agency in Austin and who worried how they’d be received in a religious rural community like Gander. “But they treated us wonderfully,” Tuerff says. “It was a powerful moment for me. We both grew up in middle-class households and I had never had to rely on a stranger to give me a pillow to lay my head.”
David Hein feels the show spreads a vital message. “There’s something important in having faith that we have more in common with people and having that faith overcome the fear,” he says. “Right now it feels important to tell stories about overcoming differences and coming together as an international community. It’s wonderful to take a story that has inspired you and share it with the world and see it inspire other people.”
Nick Marson agrees. “While 9/11 was about the worst of humanity, what happened in Gander over those five days was about the best of humanity. Those people opened their town and their hearts to us. It’s a story of human kindness.’
A hit around the world, this fast-paced production, directed by Christopher Ashley, with musical staging by Kelly Devine and music supervision and arrangements by Ian Eisendrath, runs for 100 minutes with no interval and invites you to experience the joyous story and soaring music as spirited locals and global passengers come together and forge friendships that will stay with them forever.
Overall, the show stirred deep emotions within me, eliciting more than a few tears. It served as a poignant reminder of the profound loss experienced on 9/11, a day etched in our collective memory. However, amidst the sombre reflections, it also highlighted the resilience of the human spirit. Despite the tragedy, countless new bonds and friendships emerged, serving as beacons of hope and unity in the face of adversity.
The Come From Away musical is on at New Theatre Oxford until Saturday 27 April
