COME FROM AWAY
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
When: May 10-24
Tickets: $159.75-$169.75 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or
When playwrights Irene Sankoff and David Hein began writing Come From Away — the hit Broadway musical about the real-life actions of townsfolk from Gander, N.L., during the Sept. 11 attacks — they had modest expectations.
It was constructed to be a musical by Canadians, about Canadians, and almost exclusively for Canadians. “We thought Canadian colleges and high schools would be forced to do it, and that would have been fine,” Sankoff said. “We just wanted to tell the story in the most honest way possible.”
Things escalated quickly. By the time Come From Away made it to Broadway in 2017, expectations for it were high. And it delivered.
Now the longest-running Canadian musical in Broadway history, it ran for more than 1,670 regular performances before closing in October, after six consecutive years in New York. It won a slew of awards, including Tony, Drama Desk, Laurence Olivier and Critics’ Circle Theatre trophies, and earned a Grammy Award nomination for best musical theatre album.
The momentum has not ebbed. Come From Away is not the first touring Broadway production to visit the Royal Theatre, as it will do next week — everything from Mamma Mia! to Jersey Boys has passed through the room in recent years — but its impact on the market is unmatched to this point.
Come From Away opens Wednesday at the Royal Theatre, and runs through May 24. Though initially scheduled for 16 performances, an additional four were added to meet overwhelming demand. More than 24,000 tickets have been sold to date, according to Broadway in Victoria, the company presenting the event. That number is due to increase as tickets are still available.
By the end of its upcoming 15-day, 20-show run, Come From Away will have sold more tickets than any other event in history at the Broughton Street theatre.
“Without a doubt, this is the biggest show [the Royal Theatre] has ever undertaken,” said Franz Lehrbass, executive director of the Royal & McPherson Theatres Society. “Tons of planning has gone into this to make things run smoothly.”
The husband-and-wife team of Sankoff and Hein wrote the book, music and lyrics for Come From Away, which is built around one of the most unique moments in Canadian history.
The story was inspired by Operation Yellow Ribbon, an emergency action plan that was enacted following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City. Incoming international flights to the U.S. were sent by federal aviation agencies to airports in sa国际传媒, including one in Gander, Newfoundland, whose tiny airport welcomed 38 planes carrying more than 6,600 passengers and crew.
Gander International Airport, a popular refuelling stop for planes on transatlantic flights, could handle large aircraft, so it was deemed a natural fit by the U.S. and Canadian governments. Major airports were simply too busy to accept the influx.
That’s the pertinent navigational data. The human side of the story is how Gander residents responded. With the town’s population estimated at fewer than 10,000, the arrival of thousands of stranded passengers and crew proved to be a momentous undertaking. Sankoff and Hein interviewed many of the real life passengers, crew and townsfolk involved in the five-day ordeal, and some conversations were included verbatim.
When the show’s opening night performance on Broadway had concluded, Hein and Sankoff brought many of the real-life residents out on stage during the curtain call. That’s when Hein knew they had birthed something special. “This jaded New York audience cheered and gave them a standing ovation,” he said with a laugh.
Gander returned to a fully operational state on Sept. 17, 2001, when the remaining transients were finally flown home. But Sankoff and Hein knew things in Gander would never be normal again. “That’s when we realized this isn’t about us or our writing, this is about celebrating real people who did something extraordinary.”
Hein toured sa国际传媒 as a singer-songwriter years ago, even making it to Victoria for a performance at one point (he also wrote a song, Victoria, celebrating the city.) What he learned touring across sa国际传媒 he applied to the songs in the musical, rendering them with a strain of Celtic music unique to Newfoundland. “I used to play kitchen parties, stopping at peoples’ homes for concerts. What we tried to make Come From Away feel like is a house concert.”
And therein lies the beating heart of Come From Away, an enduring tribute to the human spirit. “I think the timing is perfect for this particular show to come to Vancouver Island, as we’ve all struggled through the pandemic crisis and are now celebrating in the context of being able to once more gather in public to celebrate live storytelling,” Lehrbass said.
“I believe the experience will be even more impactful because of the struggle from which we have prevailed.”
Hein agrees that the pandemic has added another layer of emotion to what was already a heartfelt, heartwarming story. “There’s yet to be a performance of the show that doesn’t end with a standing ovation. There’s a common denominator that we all share — we want stories about being good to one another, stories about kindness.”
Sankoff and Hein currently split their time between Toronto and New York. They were living in Manhattan when 9/11 happened, and were among a group of international students living together when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. What they experienced and saw first-hand gave them a unique perspective during the writing process, according to Hein.
“One of the themes of the show was ‘Should we take care of each other?’ and ‘How do we take care of each other?’ Newfoundlanders do it as a matter of course. They were raised through hard times, like terrible winters. So many of them believe you give what you have to your neighbour if they need it. I think what we learned seeing the show go around the world is that we all inherently have the potential to be kind in these situations.”
