Professional Lighting & Production - Winter 2018 | Page 19

shock and horror of the September 11 th at-
tacks while also highlighting that hope can be
found when people who would never have
crossed paths otherwise come together – the
message that, even in times of crippling uncer-
tainty and fear, there’s power in the kindness of
strangers, and consolation and even joy to be
found in the face of tragedy.
Undoubtedly, however, another driver of
that success is the musical’s sheer entertain-
ment value.
Both the nature of the show and the
subject matter itself had a huge impact on the
scenic and lighting designs.
Come from Away takes place in numerous
settings in Gander – homes, a Tim Hortons,
various facilities used to house the “plane peo-
ple,” inside, outside, on the airfield, and in the
planes themselves – and between them, the
12 main actors play roughly 70 individual roles.
Of course, those include characters from all
over the world – America, the Middle East, Eu-
rope, and more in addition to Newfoundland
– with accents to match. Occasionally, they’re
helped along when one or more members of
the seven-piece band emerge from the trees
between which they’re scattered during most
of the show.
Given the number of locations, roles, and
the breakneck pace at which they change –
sometimes in the middle of a line of dialogue
– Boritt says that, stylistically, that called for a
markedly theatrical presentation. “We weren’t
doing realism, exactly,” he explains. “We were
going to do something that allowed a person
to be character A, B, and C, all in 30 seconds,
so what surrounded them had to be theatrical
enough to allow that, but at the same time, the
subject matter is deadly serious.” That meant
a fine balance had to be established. “[Direc-
tor] Chris Ashley had the idea that we could
create almost all the locations we need out of
12 mismatched chairs. That was kind of our
starting point.”
The chairs, simply by being arranged
in various formations, help represent many
locations – a bar, a home, and even the interior
of one of the planes, among many others. But
then the question, Boritt shares, was: “What do
we surround that with?”
While most of the show takes place in
Gander, the creative team also wanted to re-
flect the events taking place in New York City,
Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, because
that was the main context within which the
events in Gander play out. “I wanted to touch
on that in some way,” says Boritt, and in fact,
it’s touched on in numerous ways – typically
very subtly.
In setting the scene for the planes coming
into Gander and telegraphing the uncer-
tainty of the passengers, whose knowledge
of what’s happened is limited, 26 trees were
placed around the stage, signifying what the
passengers, who had little or no idea of where
they were, saw as they were coming in to land.
“That led me to what the set is, this forest on
stage,” Boritt notes.
There are two specific elements he points
out that literally touch on the events else-
where and their setting.
“One is the back wall – an old wooden
plank wall, like an old barn or something that
feels kind of rustic, rural, and anything but New
York City, but is painted sort of the cerulean
blue the sky was that day,” he reveals. “I was in
New York on 9/11. It was a stunningly beauti-
ful, crisp fall day. The colour of the sky was so
beautiful and that this death and horror came
out of that beautiful sky is just burned into my
memory. That seemed very potent to me and
so the wall of the set is that colour, with clouds
painted into it so it can turn into a literal sky.”
Then there are the two broken trees in the
upper stage left corner whose tops appear to
have been snapped off. “We never literally refer
to them, but these two, broken, standing ob-
jects are symbolic of the towers and the death
and destruction of that day. When we get to
the moment in the show where the characters
are seeing news footage of the towers falling
down, it’s kind of a silent moment, and Howell
puts a spotlight on those trees.”
Like the blue of the sky, it’s subtle. “Some
audience members get it and are quite moved
by it. I’m sure many don’t notice, but that was
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