Overview
When Come From Away opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on March 12, 2017, it turned one of the darkest days in recent American history into a musical not primarily about the attacks themselves, but about what ordinary people did for strangers in the days that followed. On September 11, 2001, after terrorist attacks in the United States caused American airspace to close, 38 commercial aircraft carrying thousands of passengers were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, a small Canadian community whose enormous former aviation infrastructure made it capable of receiving them. Almost overnight, the population of the surrounding area dramatically increased. Local residents opened schools, community centers, churches, and their homes. They prepared food, gathered bedding, filled prescriptions, cared for animals, provided phones, and attempted to comfort people who did not yet fully understand what had happened. Come From Away tells their stories through a cast of twelve performers who rapidly switch between residents of Newfoundland and stranded travelers from around the world. Songs including “Welcome to the Rock,” “38 Planes,” “Blankets and Bedding,” “Me and the Sky,” “Prayer,” and “Something’s Missing” create a musical about crisis, hospitality, fear, grief, and temporary community. Its subject is 9/11. But its central question is different: when history suddenly enters ordinary life, how do ordinary people respond?
Historical Era
The musical is rooted in September 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes. Two struck the World Trade Center towers in New York, one struck the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew resisted the hijackers. American airspace was closed, creating an unprecedented aviation crisis. Under Operation Yellow Ribbon, Canada accepted hundreds of diverted aircraft. Gander became one of the most important landing points because its airport possessed unusually long runways and extensive capacity inherited from its earlier role in transatlantic aviation. The town had once been a major refueling stop for international flights. By 2001, advances in aircraft technology had made that role far less important. Then, for several extraordinary days, Gander again became a crossroads of the world. From Historical Event to Oral History One of the most important aspects of Come From Away is how it was researched. Writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein traveled to Newfoundland in 2011 for the tenth anniversary of 9/11, interviewing residents and returning passengers about their experiences. Those interviews became the foundation of the musical. Many characters are based directly on real individuals, while others combine experiences from multiple people. This gives Come From Away characteristics of oral history and documentary theater. The writers did not begin with fictional characters and place them into a historical event. They began by listening to people who had actually experienced it and then shaped those memories into theatrical form. That process also raises an important historical question: how do you compress thousands of individual experiences into a ninety-minute musical without pretending everyone experienced the event in exactly the same way? The show's solution is multiplicity. No single character owns the story.
Production Innovation
Come From Away achieves enormous scale with remarkably limited theatrical resources. There are no airplanes landing onstage and no realistic reconstruction of Gander Airport.
Instead, twelve actors, twelve chairs, several tables, an onstage band, lighting, movement, and the audience's imagination create dozens of locations and characters. A performer can become a Newfoundlander and, seconds later, a stranded passenger simply by changing posture, accent, costume detail, or physical position. The chairs can become an airplane cabin, a bus, a bar, or a community center. That economy is central to the production's meaning. The story is about people improvising with whatever they have available. The theater does the same thing. “Me and the Sky” Among the musical's individual stories, “Me and the Sky” stands apart. The song tells the story of Beverley Bass, based on the real American Airlines pilot who became the airline's first female captain. She recounts falling in love with aviation, overcoming gender barriers, and eventually commanding commercial aircraft. Then the song abruptly reaches September 11. The thing she has spent her life loving—the airplane—has suddenly become associated with terror. That shift allows the musical to show how historical events can transform the meaning of something deeply personal. It also places a woman’s professional story at the center of an aviation narrative historically dominated by men. Faith, Difference, and Fear The musical does not present the days in Gander as an uncomplicated utopia. The stranded passengers speak different languages, follow different religions, and react differently to uncertainty. In “Prayer,” Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other characters pray simultaneously, creating overlapping traditions rather than forcing them into a single expression of faith. The show also acknowledges the fear directed toward Ali, a Muslim passenger, after the attacks.
This matters because hospitality after 9/11 existed alongside rapidly increasing suspicion of Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. Come From Away therefore contains two possibilities within the same historical moment: fear can make strangers suspicious of one another, but contact can also make strangers recognize one another as individuals. Community Without Sentimentality The generosity of Gander's residents is extraordinary partly because much of it is extremely practical. People need food. They need places to sleep. Animals trapped aboard aircraft need care. Passengers need medication. People need access to telephones so they can tell relatives they are alive. This prevents the musical's idea of kindness from remaining abstract. Community is constructed through tasks. Someone cooks. Someone drives a bus. Someone finds blankets. Someone opens a school. The musical suggests that compassion is not primarily a feeling. It becomes meaningful when someone does something useful for another person.
Historical Significance
Come From Away had an unusual journey to Broadway. Before arriving in New York, it developed through productions in La Jolla, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Toronto, allowing the show to build an audience gradually. On Broadway, it received seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical. Christopher Ashley won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical.
The Broadway production ran for more than 1,600 performances, closing in October 2022 after returning from the COVID-19 Broadway shutdown. Its success was remarkable for a ninety-minute musical without an intermission, major celebrity casting, elaborate spectacle, or conventional romantic lead. Instead, the ensemble itself was the protagonist. A professionally filmed stage production was released in 2021, extending the musical's audience beyond Broadway. Representing 9/11 on Broadway Turning events connected to 9/11 into musical theater carries obvious risks. Music can easily sentimentalize tragedy. Come From Away largely avoids recreating the attacks themselves. The audience learns what happened in fragments, much as many of the stranded passengers did. The musical focuses instead on aftermath, uncertainty, and response. This distinguishes it from a conventional historical musical. The characters do not know they are living through a chapter that will later appear in history books. They are simply trying to get through the next hour. That perspective gives the musical much of its emotional force. History is experienced first as ordinary life being suddenly interrupted.
Why It Resonates With Me
What I find most moving about Come From Away is that its heroes are not extraordinary because they possess unusual power. They are teachers, bus drivers, store owners, police officers, animal-care workers, and neighbors who suddenly encounter a problem much larger than anything they expected. Their response is incredibly practical: What needs to be done, and how can I help do it? I also love that no single character dominates the musical. Twelve performers continually become different people, making the community itself feel like the protagonist. For me, Come From Away offers an important way of thinking about history: we often remember history through presidents, wars, disasters, and major decisions, but history is also made through thousands of small choices by ordinary people about how they will treat one another when circumstances suddenly change.
