‘Come From Away’ Puts You In The Moment

The set consists of an enormous map that takes up the back wall of the stage and also covers the floor, so that the performers are standing and performing on it. Circled on the map in the top right corner is the town of Gander, Newfoundland.

A dozen mismatched chairs and two square tables serve as props, rearranged in different configurations to form locales such as the mayor’s office, the elementary school, an airplane and the local legion hall.

The show’s eight musicians perform from the side of the stage on instruments as varied as the accordion, fiddle, Irish flute and bodhrán.

For those unfamiliar with the true story that inspired the musical, “Come From Away” takes place in the days following September 11, 2001, when, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 38 planes were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, due to the closure of US airspace. For five days after the attacks, the small town of Gander and the surrounding communities played host to 7,000 stranded passengers.

After the initial shock of what has happened in the United States, the local townsfolk spring into action, converting all available spaces into temporary housing, making food and gathering supplies for the arrival of the passengers, who they refer to as the “plane people.”

The cast of 14 all perform multiple roles in the show, switching characters on stage by simply changing a hat or a jacket. This fluidity adds to the idea that we’re all part of one big melting pot or maybe that we’re all in this together—choose the metaphor that works best for you.

The majority of the play is sung, with most of the songs springing up organically. The majority of the songs are sung by the entire ensemble, which adds to the feel of the show as one big group effort.

One exception is “Me And The Sky,” sung with assertion by Kelli Barrett as pilot Beverly Bass. The song recounts Bass’s lifelong infatuation with flying and her raw grief in the wake of 9/11 that “the one thing I loved more than anything” has been used as a bomb.

Another memorable solo is by Christiani Pitts as Hannah, a mother worried about her New York firefighter son, expressing her frustration at being stuck in Canada and not being at the World Trade Center site to look for him in the mournful “I Am Here.”

The show manages to touch on the myriad issues faced by the townsfolk and the plane people: language barriers, dietary restrictions, religious differences and the raw emotions of both the stranded passengers and the townsfolk.

Sitting on the tarmac, unable to get off the planes, passengers go from confused to frustrated, angry, conspiratorial and, finally, inebriated once the crew start passing out drinks. The progression is perfectly captured in the song “28 Hours/Wherever We Are.”

In the scene surrounding the song “Prayer,” the passengers seek out different places of worship. Hannah goes to the Catholic Church to light a candle for her son, Kevin T, recalls the hymn, “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.” A rabbi who was a passenger on one of the planes finds himself comforting a local with Jewish ancestry; a Muslim passenger is offered space to pray at the library.

Two musical numbers later, a group of passengers and locals, together in the legion hall, sing a rollicking “Screech In,” which includes some traditional maritime music, a snippet from the “Titanic” soundtrack and a ceremony by which “come from aways” become honorary Newfoundlanders by donning foul-weather gear, drinking screech and kissing a cod.

Because it’s an ensemble piece, every cast member pulls their weight: Mary Callanan is well cast as Beulah, the headstrong teacher who takes charge of housing people at the school and also, because her son is a firefighter, bonds with Hannah. Joel Hatch is well-suited to his role as the mayor of Gander. Ryann Redmond is Janice, a TV reporter on her first day on the job, coping with her own nervousness and the overwhelming events of the day.

In the midst of devastation, a romance breaks out between two plane passengers, Diane (Pearl Sun), who is returning home to Texas; and Nick (Jim Walton), who is from Great Britain. The night before the planes are scheduled to depart they sing “Stop The World,” expressing their guilt over wanting to stay in this moment.

With the exception of a humiliating and violating search before Ali (James Seol), a Muslim, can reboard his plane, there’s so much kindness on display it’s almost overwhelming.

Along with the 7,000 passengers, 19 animals also made an unscheduled stopover in Gander with Bonnie (Garrett Long) a local SPCA volunteer adamant that they be looked after as well. She’s soon busy administering pills to a diabetic cat and caring for a pair of rare bonobo chimpanzees.

While the play is about a specific time and place it asks the viewers to be present in their own moments, and reminds us that as much as we’d like to—we can’t always control things.

The show wraps up on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with many of the “plane people” returning to Gander to reunite with the community that opened their hearts and homes to them. Audiences learn what became of several of the passengers and that a scholarship for the Town of Gander started by the grateful passengers had a net worth in excess of $1 million by 2011.

“Come From Away” was fully engrossing from start to finish. The show runs for 100 minutes without intermission, probably because there were no breaks in the action to fit an intermission into.