Professional Lighting & Production - Winter 2018 | Page 18

18 PL&P
COME
FROM
AWAY
T
he Broadway smash Come from
Away tells the little-known story of
the 7,000 stranded passengers who
landed in Gander, NL, after flights
across North America were grounded in
response to the tragic events of 9/11. 
The Tony-nominated book was written
by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, who spent
a considerable amount of time interviewing
both Gander locals and those who had “come
from away” in 2001. The idea for Come from
Away was suggested to Sankoff and Hein by
Canadian lawyer Michael Rubinoff, who is
also a theatre producer and associate dean of
visual and performing arts at Oakville, ON’s
Sheridan College.
In fact, Come from Away was first mount-
ed at Sheridan in 2013 in a student produc-
tion as part of the Canadian Music Theatre
Project. From there, it had further develop-
ment in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and at
Goodspeed Musicals’ Festival of New Artists in
East Haddam, CT.
Spotlighting Kindness in the Wake of a Tragedy
By Kevin Young | Photos by Matthew Murphy
The project then caught the eye of Christo-
pher Ashley, the artistic director of La Jolla Play-
house in San Diego, CA, where the show had its
first professional production in the summer of
2015, co-produced with the Seattle Repertory
Theatre, where it played later that year.
From those very first presentations, the
show was enthusiastically embraced by
audiences and critics, encouraging Junkyard
Dog Productions, a Tony-winning New York
production company, to mount a Broadway
production, which had its out-of-town tryout
in a much-hyped and sold-sold engagement
at Toronto’s historic Royal Alexandra Theatre
late in 2016. 
Opening on Broadway in March 2017 at
the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, the show be-
came a runaway hit, garnering multiple Tony
nominations and winning the Tony for Best
Direction of a Musical for Christopher Ashley.
By popular demand, a second production
of Come from Away was mounted in Toronto
with an all-Canadian cast, trying out in Winni-
peg for a short period before moving to the
Royal Alexandra Theatre, where its run has
been repeatedly extended as the musical’s
popularity continues to grow and grow.
The idea of a musical based around the
events of 9/11 and its aftermath – even those
taking place thousands of miles away – may
seem odd, to say the least. That was certainly
the case for scenic designer Beowulf Boritt, at
least initially. “When I first heard of it, I thought,
‘Who wants to see a musical about 9/11?’” he
admits candidly. “But once I read it and heard
the music, I thought it dealt with the subject
really well.”
Lighting designer Howell Binkley had
a similar reaction, but likewise, after going
through the script, he says: “I saw it’s really fo-
cused on reflecting how these people had to
react during that day, and after, even though
they weren’t in New York City.”
Indeed, one of the drivers of its success
is how well it does just that: conveying the