The unusual Canadian musical about the day that 38 wide-body jets dropped out of the sky and disgorged more than 6,000 confused international passengers into the town of Gander, Newfoundland, has turned into one of the most produced shows of the year. Especially here in the upper Midwest, where folks at their best have some kin with the famously affable people of Newfoundland.
Consider. It’s been only eight months since the national tour of the Broadway production played in downtown Chicago, for the second time. Friday night, Aurora’s Paramount Theatre opened its own staging by director Trent Stork. Next month, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre opens its brand new theater with … “Come From Away.” If that were not enough, the Marriott Theatre has added this same title to its 2026 season, meaning you can also see it in-the-round in Lincolnshire next summer.
And that’s just around here. The national picture is much the same. All good for the Tim Horton’s coffeehouse chain, aka Timmies, which is where the day starts and ends in the land of “fish and chips and shipwrecks,” the rock “where the winters try to kill us and we say we will not be killed.”
One can relate.
On my fifth viewing, it’s time to once again ponder this astounding popularity of an intermissionless Canadian musical that was regarded as such an iffy bet for Broadway that it took more than 50 producers to give the show its main-stem shot. It didn’t win the Tony Award for best musical of 2017, either, likely a consequence of its intentionally loose structure, its cheerily geeky tone, and a relatively low number of what you might think of as legitimate musical numbers. There are no true leads, either, in what truly is an ensemble piece.
But an ensemble piece was what was needed for a musical about people from all walks of life, in all manner of places, coming together and being met with kindness. And since it’s a pretty safe bet that the “plane people,” as those from Gander referred to those diverted after U.S. airspace was closed down in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, all were as traumatized at least as much as the rest of us that week, the show’s oral-history orientation and dedication to multiple points of view made perfect sense. “Come From Away” is not a great musical in terms of dramaturgical form or score or whatever, but it is an uncommonly powerful piece of theater and a reminder of how much audiences like seeing characters much like the versions of themselves they hope to be, unselfish and courageous under very trying circumstances. If nothing else, this is one of the most affirmative musicals of the last decade. And people like to be affirmed more than they like to be judged.
Stork’s production is a very solid staging, hampered a tad by the size of the Paramount Theatre, but deftly cast with performers like Andrea Prestinario. She’s terrific as the American Airlines pilot who gets the one great musical number in the show; it’s good to see her back performing in Chicago for the first time in years. But then the entire cast, including the likes of Ron E. Rains, Susie McMonagle, Michelle Duffy and Sarah Reinecke, all are warm and funny, and there is moving work from Adam Qutaishat, playing a passenger who has to overcome the suspicions prevalent at that time.
This staging, contained in an epically verdant setting from Milo Bue, leans more into the comedy than the original production. Fair enough, especially given the expansive creativity applied in Aurora to the visual aspects of the piece, although the performance I saw didn’t always reach the level of emotional tension that I’ve seen mined with this material in the past. But, in all fairness, some of that may be about timing; the show had truly uncommon force both on its debut and right after the pandemic.
Now, with division and xenophobia rife, “Come From Away” can stand as an aspirational, reach-across-the-aisle musical about how humans can cooperate in dire circumstances and build bonds that last far beyond the reason for their initial forging.
