{"id":6513,"date":"2017-04-11T08:12:44","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T12:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6513"},"modified":"2017-04-24T08:07:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T12:07:57","slug":"come-from-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6513","title":{"rendered":"Come from Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ComeFromAwayLogo\"The affirming new Broadway musical Come from Away<\/em> is lively and warm-hearted, with a special tug at the heart for every American remembering 9\/11. On that terrible September morning, dozens of planes carrying thousands of passengers were en route to the United States when the country closed its airspace. Those planes had to land somewhere else, and 38 of them landed in Gander, Newfoundland, the rock in the sea.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Gander\u2019s population nearly doubled. The nearly 7,000 passengers and crew were from all over the world. They had all sorts of issues. They\u2014and the 19 animals with them\u2014needed food, places to sleep, their medications, phones, and . . . someone to talk to. Come from Away<\/em> tells how the people of Newfoundland rose to this unprecedented occasion with amazing generosity.<\/p>\n

Irene Sankoff and David Hein wrote the book, music, and lyrics based on hundreds of \u00a0interviews with the people of Newfoundland, as well as many of the stranded passengers. A cast of twelve plays multiple parts\u2014both townspeople and passengers\u2014and most have been with the ensemble continuously since its first production at the LaJolla Playhouse in 2015. The cast is uniformly strong, with good singing voices, good energy, and a well-honed ability to switch from one role to another so there\u2019s never any confusion.<\/p>\n

Although the production has many characters, there are definite stories and relationships. One is the experience of an American Airlines pilot. She wanted to fly since childhood, because when she flew, \u201cnothing was between me and the sky.\u201d She gets a job flying corpses at first, then corporate jets, and ultimately became the airline\u2019s first female pilot. Now, to think her beloved airplanes were used as bombs, \u201csomething\u2019s come between me and the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

The music is provided by an eight-person band, split on either side of the stage and featuring instruments you might associate with Irish music\u2014pipes, and the Bodhran (flat drum)\u2014as well as guitars, a violin, and percussion. Occasionally, the musicians join in the dancing, and most of the songs are sung by the whole cast, with only brief solos. This creative choice emphasizes the show\u2019s theme of community pulling together.<\/p>\n

Christopher Ashley directed the 100-minute show, which is performed with no intermission. Ian Eisendrath is the musical supervisor and Kelly Devine, the choreographer. The simple and versatile set is by Beowulf Boritt, with costumes by Toni-Leslie James.<\/p>\n

Come from Away<\/em> has been performed at the La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Ford\u2019s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, and, the program says, the hockey rink in Gander, Newfoundland. It\u2019s now at Broadway\u2019s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we come from everywhere, we all come from away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The affirming new Broadway musical Come from Away is lively and warm-hearted, with a special tug at the heart for every American remembering 9\/11. On that terrible September morning, dozens of planes carrying thousands of passengers were en route to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Come from Away - affirming new musical about Newfoundlanders' help for 7000 airline passengers stranded after 9\/11","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[266,207,104,147],"tags":[954,953,952,955,951,416],"class_list":["post-6513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-music","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-954","tag-come-from-away","tag-david-hein","tag-gerald-schoenfeld-theatre","tag-irene-sankoff","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1H3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6516,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6513\/revisions\/6516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}