By Ian Rigg
![]() “On the northeast tip of North America, on an island called Newfoundland, there’s an airport. And next to it, there’s a town called Gander.” The must-see musical Come From Away illuminates and examines the story you know, through a true story you don’t. And it makes for simply must-see musical theatre. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, planes were left scrambled in the air, unable to land at their intended destination, each considered a potential bomb threat. 38 of them were directed to land in a once popular hub for connecting flights, a remote and obsolete airport in Newfoundland. 7,000 people didn’t get their intended flight that day. But they sure made their connection.
Come From Away rounds out every facet of the human condition under the crucible of crisis. The masterful book, music and lyrics by tony nominees Irene Sankoff & David Hein is both a testament to the everyday goodness of people and a multilayered depiction of the many facets and forces at play during this tumultuous week of history. It would have been so easy to make this show a sheer feel good fest, but it’s so much truer and more transcendent than that.
Director Christopher Ashley and musical stager Kelly Devine prove that all you need to make great theatre are a few chairs, lights, and a whole flight full of heart. Ashley keeps the vision on course with its everlasting themes of human connection, and Devine lives up to her surname by arranging stirring stage pictures and environments from plane fuselages to bars to mountaintops with evocative movements and a perfectly utilized turntable.
Given all of these gifts to play with, it’s the incredible actors who bring Come From Away to life. The absolutely dynamite cast effortlessly shifts between roles, each embodying no fewer than two characters each, from town mayor to ASPCA advocate saving the animals in the cargo hold to Muslim chef to small-town reporter on her first day to English man and Texan woman falling for one another to bus driver to mother of a firefighter to man-crazed aide to airline captain.
Come From Away is a timeless time capsule of four days of horror, humor, and humanity, an elegy of what was lost and a celebration of what was found. With a stirring score, singular stagecraft, and soaring spirit, it’s the kind of show an audience will never forget. Broadway in Chicago presents “Come From Away” through August 18 at Cadillac Palace, 151 W. Randolph Street, Chicago. For tickets and more information click here. |
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