'Come From Away' Creators Reflect on Show's Run and Enduring Appeal

As the world remembers the 9/11 attacks 21 years later, a small town in Newfoundland has other memories from the following week. That story was captured in the Broadway musical hit Come From Away. Now, as Come From Away, a little musical that could (and did), prepares to close after a run of over five years, the show's creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff took time to talk to Newsweek and reflect on the show's creation and how it has affected audiences for over five years.

When they began working on it, interviewing locals in 2011, neither Sankoff nor Hein had any idea that Come From Away would blossom into a Broadway hit and a cult favorite. Sankoff told Newsweek, "Early on, I gave up on anybody but Canadian high schools and universities [performing it]: Who else would care but Canadians? It was CanCon—Canadian context. Kids would be forced to study in and do it. So, every step of the way. I've been surprised."

Hein added, "The fact that we got invited to a festival in New York was amazing. The fact that producers there were interested in the show was amazing. And then the fact that we got to do it at La Jolla where Jersey Boys came from—that was amazing. Every step of the way was a gift and a surprise. And Broadway happened. Then it went beyond Broadway. Now it's in Argentina, and it's opening in Finland this month. It's incredible how far this little story of celebrating Newfoundland has gone."

And it was at times a bit overwhelming. A major step in the show's journey was the production at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2016, where it was directed by Christopher Ashley. Sankoff said, "I remember waking up in the middle of the night before La Jolla and being like, I can't do this. How am I gonna go down there and take notes and do the rewrites that they need us to do? We had an almost 2-year-old at the time and a lot of people were telling me, 'Well just David's gonna go, right?' I'm like, I don't think just David wants to go. That's not really going to work."

Freedom to Think

Working on what she then thought was destined to be just a Canadian high school favorite helped a little. Sankoff told Newsweek, "There's a bizarre sort of freedom to thinking, Oh, no one is ever going to do this beyond Canada and the most important thing is that we honor the people who the story is about, the people in Newfoundland.

"There was a lot of, 'How are you going to do this, to make it commercial?' And I was like, 'You know what, I don't think we want to do that. We want to do this in a way that if I ever sit down for coffee with any of the people that the story was about, I can do it and look them in the eye and say I told your story the best way I could. And we do often sit down with them.'"

Petrina Bromley, the lone native Newfoundlander in the original cast, was a bit uneasy at first. She previously told Newsweek that she was worried that these outsiders would come in and make fun of the locals. But when she got to La Jolla and did the first reading, her fears were assuaged.

Hein said, "That's all that's all we ever wanted was for the Newfoundlanders to say we got it right."

Bromley, Sankoff said, was "one of the first people we asked to be in the show. We had to go to New York and audition, and I was like, 'I know it's a big deal to come from Newfoundland and come to the audition. Please come down, and I will do everything in my power to get you seen. To get you a callback and get you cast,' because I just knew we needed a Newfoundlander in the room."

Hein said, "I think Petrina was worried that we were going to do some stereotypical version of Newfoundlanders—especially us as 'come from aways'. We really wanted to get it right. We wanted to get the music right: The accordion was detuned; the reeds were detuned just slightly, and it was played on a budget accordion. We wanted to get the accents exactly right. We wanted them to say, 'You got it right.' Because we wanted them to feel loved and to feel celebrated."

'That's What This Show Is'

The staging is complex and precise. Kelly Devine's choreography, while not traditional, is key to the show's success. In fact, it is easy to overlook. Actors play many characters and move chairs and props, hit a mark, sing and change character in a split second. One missed beat could send a whole scene off-kilter.

Hein says, "It has 12 chairs that look exactly the same with a million spike tapes on the ground. And then the thing that I love that, that no one really sees about the choreography and the staging is that one of our Newfoundlanders, Petrina, started to do is during rehearsal: At one point, there was a moment when two actors were downstage and one of them had to change character—

"And they had to be in a different seat, and he had to be a different guy," Sankoff adds quickly.

"And we knew," Hein continues, "that Chris was about to ask us to change the sequence of the scenes. Because it just wouldn't work from a staging perspective. And then Petrina said, 'Well, what if I just take off his jacket?' So she takes off Kevin T.'s jacket and [the actor] immediately goes from Kevin T. and becomes Garth.

"And everyone in the room was like, 'Oh, that's what this show is: It's not about moving your chair to where you need it to be next. It's about taking someone else's jacket off, and carrying it to the back while you sing your harmony for someone else, putting it on a chair so that they can move it around so someone else can pick it up, move it over there and then it's there for someone when they need it. It's literally about helping people on stage and being there for your community on stage and moving the chair just in time for someone else to sit on it.

"It changed the whole show.

"And when you actually watch the staging, a million times like we have, when you see all these details, you notice these tiny little things: where one person is not in charge of their prop. One prop can pass through the entire cast before it arrives at the right person. And it's this intricate magic trick that looks so simple. And the level of detail they put into it and the level of complex thought still blows our mind."

Bringing People Together

On and off stage, the staging brings the company together. Sankoff told Newsweek, "It's a family. And now that the show is closing and seeing the crew guys in tears—you know, you have something special."

Hein said, "The producers that we have Sue [Fros] and Randy [Adams] and Kenny and Marleen [Alhadeff [of Junkyard Dog Productions], I think are some of the best producers we could ever have. They always include all of the crew, the front of house, everyone is at every event.

Sankoff said, "Yeah, the cleaning ladies are always at the cast parties."

"Everyone's included," Hein said, "because all of us, we're all telling the story. I don't think it's always like that."

Hein and Sankoff took a deep breath, and he said, "So I think we're done. This is the best we'll ever be, and that's wonderful."

The fan reaction to Come From Away has been impressive. People have seen the show multiple times, and some travel great distances to attend show-related events. Many fans include those from Gander, on whom their characters are at least partially based. The family has grown and continues to grow.

With no big-name stars, the draw of Come From Away has always been the story. It strikes a chord with audiences that few other shows have. In a world that often seems unnecessarily cruel, especially to outsiders, Come From Away, has a message of inclusivity that seems will not grow old anytime soon. It is made all the more powerful by the fact that the story is true, the incidents happened and the people are real. And even after it closes on October 2, it promises to travel well, and be well received, like all those people who descended upon Gander and the neighboring towns were 21 years ago.

Come From Away is playing at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, New York, through October 2. In the show's final weeks on Broadway, original company members Josh Breckenridge, Petrina Bromley and Jenn Colella have returned to finish out the run.